Assistance program
Low Income Household Water Assistance Program
-$25.5 Million committed in FY2022–FY2026
- Agency
- Administration for Children and Families, Health and Human Services, Department of
- Assistance
- Not Applicable
- CFDA number
- 93.499
- What it does
- The objective of the Low Income Household Water Assistance program is to meet unprecedented water services needs that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. This program is meant to be an emergency program that provides quick intervention to help the people facing the high water/wastewater costs compared to their income in resuming and/or maintaining their home water/wastewater services. The benefits are limited to households with low income, particularly those that pay a high proportion of household income for drinking water and wastewater services, by providing funds to owners or operators of public water systems or treatment works to reduce arrearages of and rates charged to eligible households. Low income is defined in the federal rules as the greater of 150% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines or 60% of State Median Income; however, each recipient (state/tribe/territory) may prescribe a lower cut-off. Recipients can also decide a household’s eligibility based on categorical eligibility of a household member, meaning someone in the household is already receiving another type of qualifying public assistance such as from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The intent to is provide financial assistance to cover water, wastewater and related services and fees. The priority is to provide assistance first and foremost to households that face the most immediate need—households whose services are already disconnected. The benefit payment and/or interventions shall be sufficient to ensure restoration of the water/wastewater services. The benefits can pay any relevant arrearage (past due amount) that is preventing service from being reconnected, as well as any related late fee, reconnection fee, penalty, etc., that is billed in normal course of billing by the water/wastewater provider to any household that has a past due balance. The last priority for assistance is for households that have service and only need help with current bills, e.g., do not have past due balances.
- Who benefits
- Households with incomes up to the greater of 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines (FPG) or 60 percent of the estimated State median income (SMI) are eligible for benefits. Recipients may establish lower income eligibility levels, but they may not set the limit below 110 percent of FPG.
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments