- Video shows information on how Kern County residents may be eligible to apply for the LIHWAP program — assisting low income families pay off their water bills.
- The program was created to help families coming out of the pandemic
- CAP-K is using its resources and partnering with city officials to create events where the application process is made easier to understand for people who are interested.
CAP-K recently hosted a water bill assistance event in Delano, helping people who qualify get their water bills paid off free of charge. Officials say 90 people applied for the program and with future events, they’re hoping those numbers will rise — but if you need help… you better hurry.
“Again, it came out from the necessity of Covid so the contract has been around this last year it has had a couple extensions, but the final extension is at the end of march 202,” said Wilfredo Cruz, Energy Program Administrator for CAP-K.
Cruz says the Low-Income Housing Water Assistance Program, also known as LIHWAP was introduced last year as a way to assist families with bills suffering financially from the pandemic.
Cruz says the events started roughly five months ago in East Bakersfield with a low turnout but Cruz blames that on a lack of promotion.
“The outlying areas as opposed to in town in Bakersfield have a lot of people coming to them. So we — the McFarland, Shafter, Wasco events I mean the doors — people are continuously coming,” said Cruz. “We range from about I think 40 in one event to almost 100 in other events.”
According to the California Department of Community Services and Development, although the budget has stayed the same, the houses served have increased in Kern County.
With a budget of $9,870,655 — 1,896 houses were served at the end of May in 2022. A recount at the end of November of 2022 showed that the houses served increased to 2,894 and the most recent count was done in May of this year, jumping to serving 5,683 houses.
Vice Mayor of Delano Salvador Solorio-Ruiz says as important as it is for organizations to reach out to outside communities, it’s up to city officials to assist in bringing those resources to the people.
“It’s our responsibility as city leaders, as community members to bridge that gap between those services and our community because often times sometimes our community members they don’t hear about it right how will they,” said Solorio-Ruiz.
Cruz says LIHWAP is a one time offer for qualifying residents — receiving a one-time payment of up to 15-thousand dollars off their water bill. He says when the program first launched — only residents with past dues were able to qualify and the payback rate was much lower than what it’s at currently.
Now with these increased benefits, Cruz wants to remind people to apply fast as this assistance wont last forever.
“Hopefully they can take that money and use it in another space you know families, kids, food, I mean we know everything is increasing so just having money, extra money for families to use in other ways I think is the most important part of our program,” said Cruz.
The next water bill assistance event will be in Shafter on December 7th from 3 p.m to 7 .p.m. for more information visit CAP-K’s website here or call 211 for more details.
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