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Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\nWith home water bills rising to pay for upgrades to Philadelphia\u2019s aging water system, City Council will consider legislation that aims to bring relief to low-income homeowners and renters, as well as residents who are hit with huge catch-up bills.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier announced a package of three measures she calls \u201cJust Water,\u201d and said it has the support of 10 other members, more than enough to ensure its passage.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWater is a basic human right, not a luxury, and we are lucky to live in a city where our water system belongs to taxpayers, not corporate interests. As rates climb, Just Water will ensure families do not lose access to clean and affordable water,\u201d she said Thursday.<\/p>\n
One bill would expand eligibility for the Tiered Assistance Program, or TAP, which provides participants with a low, set monthly water bill based on their income. Customers with incomes up to 200% of the federal poverty level would be eligible, up from 150% currently, and more people could enter payment plans for overdue bills.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\n
A second measure seeks to guarantee that the Philadelphia Water Department will cover part of the extremely high bills \u2014 sometimes up to several thousand of dollars<\/a> \u2014 that some homeowners have received after their water meters are replaced and it turns out they were underpaying for years. The third calls for a hearing on the issue of renters losing water service, or not being eligible for assistance, because bills are in their landlords\u2019 names.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the past the city-owned water department has been cautious about expanding TAP, because lost revenue would have to be made up by increasing water rates overall. Water rate experts are working with PWD and the Revenue Department to analyze the impacts, so they can understand what they would mean for the utility\u2019s financial health and for other customers, a spokesperson said. The analysis will be shared with City Council.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Parker administration shares the Councilmember\u2019s goal of providing clean drinking water to all Philadelphians and have implemented some of the most robust protections and programs to make water service affordable,\u201d PWD spokesperson Brian Rademaekers said.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the Water Department\u2019s critical role in protecting public health and the environment, the city-owned utility must be adequately funded. Lacking significant financial support from state or federal sources, revenue from water bills remains the bedrock providing funds for essential infrastructure investment and day-to-day operations \u2014 delivering and treating water for the city\u2019s 1.6 million people around the clock,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSkyrocketing\u201d living costs<\/p>\n Gauthier\u2019s proposal, which she said will get a council hearing next year, comes two weeks after elections that saw voters punish Republican candidates over mounting worries about inflation<\/a> and the rising cost of living, which some blame on the Trump administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n The measures\u2019 co-sponsors include Councilmember Nicolas O\u2019Rourke, a Working Families Party member who last month offered his own package<\/a> to control costs for low-income residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n He proposed rent rebates, an expansion of SEPTA\u2019s Zero Fare program, and a ban on any future attempt to privatize the water department.<\/p>\n Gauthier\u2019s proposal \u201cwas very, very easy to endorse, because it\u2019s another crucial effort to keep life affordable for Philadelphians,\u201d O\u2019Rourke said. \u201cI\u2019m working to ensure the system can\u2019t be privatized, to avoid the steep rate hikes that follow a sell-off. But our public system still requires fair and transparent rate increases, so we need to make sure paying the water bill is manageable when wages aren\u2019t inflating as fast as the price of life\u2019s essentials.\u201d<\/p>\n Water rates increased 9.4% in September<\/a>, to about $89 a month for the typical household. PWD attributed the increase to rising labor and equipment costs, new federal regulations requiring steps to improve surface and drinking water quality, and the costs of Philadelphia\u2019s 25-year, multibillion-dollar Water Revitalization Plan, which aims to prevent system failures.<\/p>\n Without a rate increase, the water department said it would have to cut back on essential services, including for its wastewater and stormwater collection systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n The new raft of proposals comes amid a heated debate at the state and regional levels over rapidly increasing home electricity costs<\/a> and the impact of power-hungry data centers being built to satisfy demand from the booming artificial intelligence industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n PECO bills are rising 10% over the course of two years<\/a>, due to factors including higher demand, the cost of maintaining and upgrading power distribution infrastructure, closures of coal-fired power plants, and the slow pace at which new renewable energy sources<\/a> are getting added to the regional power grid.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSkyrocketing costs force too many Philadelphians into an impossible dilemma,\u201d Gauthier said. \u201cKeep the lights on, put food on the table, or pay the water bill.\u201d<\/p>\n Reviving \u201cshared responsibility\u201d<\/p>\n TAP, the program targeted for expansion, began in 2017 and has 60,000 participants who pay water bills set at 2% to 3% of their income, Ballenger said. In addition to people who meet the income guidelines, it aids some customers with higher incomes who have suffered a special hardship, like a sudden loss of income or a household member.<\/p>\n The council ordinance would also change the eligibility rule for affordable, past-due payment plans that set payments at 4% of household income. Customers with incomes from 200% to 300% of the federal poverty level would be eligible, up from 150% to 250% currently.<\/p>\n In some years the cost of TAP subsidies increases, creating an added expense for PWD that might have to be made up with higher water rates, while in other years the cost goes down, Ballenger said. A TAP expansion could reduce the number of customers who skip payments, which might help the utility\u2019s bottom line.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ballenger said he\u2019d like to see it paired with a boost to conservation programs that help households reduce their water use and thus see lower bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n The second measure, meanwhile, attempts to improve the water department\u2019s response to the fallout from its ongoing project to replace meters in homes across the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n For some houses, PWD has been unable to gather water use data for years. Radios in the meters failed to transmit the information and the department instead created estimated bills. In some cases, when it finally replaces an old meter, the agency discovered the estimates had been too low and sent the homeowner a huge bill to make up for past underpayments.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople think that they\u2019ve paid everything they\u2019re supposed to pay, and then their meter gets replaced, and the next thing they know they get a multi-thousand dollar water bill,\u201d Ballenger said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a challenge for any household, obviously. It\u2019s a bigger challenge to low- and moderate-income households, and it represents a real risk to those households for whom, but for their ability to pay, that will become a lien on their property. That will actually deprive them of some of the value of their homes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In 2013 the city instituted a \u201cshared responsibility policy\u201d under which the customer had to pay for 12 months of water use and half of the remainder, with PWD picking up the other half, Ballenger said. However, he said the policy has not been applied evenly, and customers only learn about the assistance when they complain.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems like sort of an ad hoc approach. Some people might not be getting any relief, because it\u2019s certainly not something that the city is doing affirmatively,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea is for the city to have an affirmative process to say, now we\u2019re going to deal with these metering issues going forward and consistently addressing customers\u2019 needs with them.\u201d<\/p>\n City lawyers contend that City Council doesn\u2019t have the authority to create a program \u201cthat compromises on the future indebtedness\u201d by mandating financial assistance, according to Ballenger. But the legislation would start the process of creating the program, he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Managing landlord-tenant struggles<\/p>\n The third part of Gauthier\u2019s package authorizes council hearings on issues that can arise when water bills are in a landlord\u2019s name instead of a tenant\u2019s. One problem is that TAP and programs like the Utility Emergency Service Fund (UESF) are only available to qualifying households who have their name on the bill.<\/p>\n \u201cYou might not be able to get the water bill in your name, because, for one reason or another, your landlord forbids that from happening, or because your landlord isn\u2019t currently licensed,\u201d Ballenger said. \u201cSome low-income tenants who are clients of CLS face that issue, and that means that they are at risk of paying more than they otherwise would.\u201d<\/p>\n In some cases, a landlord will suddenly demand a tenant pay for a large accumulated water bill that isn\u2019t in their name, leading to threats of eviction if they can\u2019t afford it, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are really challenging cases, and quite frankly, displacement over a water bill is something that we should be able to resolve,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the idea is to start having some conversations to look for the best policy solutions to prevent that displacement from happening, because it is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Gauthier cited a West Philadelphia renter who lost water service because his landlord stopped paying the bill. The city told him he would have to pay $3,000 to have service restored, and later refused to turn the water back on because the landlord didn\u2019t have a rental license, the councilmember said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt isn\u2019t fair that I have to suffer because my landlord isn\u2019t paying the bill,\u201d the man said, according to Gauthier\u2019s office. \u201cI\u2019ll provide any information that they need to turn the water back on.\u201d<\/p>\n Possible solutions include coming up with ways for tenants to become official customers or making them eligible for TAP assistance even if their names aren\u2019t on bills, Ballenger said. Another idea that had helped in the past is doubling the value of subsidies from UESF and other assistance funds, so that $1 in aid provides $2 in debt relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With home water bills rising to pay for upgrades to Philadelphia\u2019s aging water system, City Council will consider…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[990,61,24480,24445,69,71,70,24479,6482,2867],"class_list":{"0":"post-43041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-city-council","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-jamie-gauthier","11":"tag-nicolas-orourke","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","14":"tag-philadelphia-news","15":"tag-philadelphia-water-department","16":"tag-utilities","17":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/10-09-2025-k-paynter-affordable-philly-presser-nichola-orourke-2.jpg\")
City Councilmember At-Large Nicolas O\u2019Rourke held a press conference at LOVE Park to announce the Affordable Philly agenda on October 9, 2025. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)<\/p>\n