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Keep the Water Flowing

For many decades, UCAN has offered assistance so that households can avoid having their power cut-off. Our energy assistance program has benefitted countless numbers of local residents. Last year alone we paid 3,410 utility bills for local folks. Now we can help households with water and sewer bills.

With the pandemic’s continuing toll on very low-income households, the federal government has expanded funding for utility assistance to help people cover their water and sewer bills as well. Households who are at or below 60% state median income are income eligible for the program. We pay utilities directly on behalf of eligible households to reconnect services, avert disconnection of services, and pay past-due amounts and current charges.

We launched the program a few months ago, and its importance has grown since then. While the pandemic continues to wax and wane, inflation has hit levels not seen since the 1980s. Lower-income households are most affected by inflation, as they have few options to reduce their costs. So we are seeing more folks in need of aid to keep them from losing water and sewer service.

At the same time, utilities benefit from this program, as it helps them cover charges for prior service they might not otherwise be able to recover. We’ve been delighted to have fifteen local utilities enter into agreements to offer this service to their customers. Together, we’re helping their customers address the most basic need of all!

Newsletters

Shaun Pritchard
Newsletters

Letter from the Executive Director – Fall 2023

Non-profit newsletters, including our own, often feature stories about their successes. Though my staff do an incredible job day in and day out serving hundreds of clients, staff alone cannot guarantee that clients will succeed. It takes a team, including not only staff, but also community partners and clients themselves, to successfully move past challenging issues. You can learn more here about how we all work together to change lives and improve our community.

Anne Kubisch
Newsletters

Beloved Community Member Retiring

UCAN regularly receives support from many wonderful local foundations and advised funds. But perhaps no other single foundation has had a greater impact on the programming we are able to offer than The Ford Family Foundation (TFFF). With their President and Chief Executive Officer Anne Kubisch retiring, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank both her and the Foundation for their support of our work in Douglas County. You can learn more about Anne and her wonderful support for rural Oregon here.

Working Together on the Road to Recovery
Newsletters

Working Together on the Road to Recovery

Oftentimes we have clients who just need a little help to get back on track. Maybe they need a utility bill paid for a couple of months. Sometimes though, folks need the benefit of many of our services before their lives are stable. The following story is about such a client, how we were able to help her with several UCAN services, and how she herself put in a lot of hard work to get her life back on track. Read about her terrific story of recovery here.