The Wichita State University (WSU) Environmental Finance Center (EFC) is
conducting a series of case studies regarding Household Affordability and Financial Capability in the Water Sector in communities in EPA Region 7. WSU is specifically looking for water and/or water and sewer utilities that serve under 10,000 people that are concerned about or have analyzed affordability for their customers.
WSU team will help utilities gather data and/or rely on utilities to gather the data needed to calculate affordability metrics, which include but are not limited to socioeconomic factors, water treatment system, income distribution of the community, staff size, etc.
The Process
- The process begins with a conversation with participating communities. WSU will request some initial information, such as population, average water bill, water distribution process, etc.
- After that, WSU will send a brief narrative along with some metric calculations that the community will need to complete. WSU will send a template with guidelines and instructions.
- WSU will then have a follow-up conversation about the metrics and ask a range of interview questions.
This project requires little time (approximately five to 10 hours over the course of several weeks).
At the conclusion of this exchange, WSU will write a case study about the community and how it was able to access and calculate the metrics and the thoughts about the process from the person who completed it. WSU will send the community a copy of the in-depth case study about their community level affordability of water/wastewater.
Centers like WSU are completing case studies across the country. These will be compiled into a larger report. If you are interested in participating, please contact Michelle DeHaven at [email protected] or Nicholas Willis at [email protected].