Baltimore City residents saw a 3% rate hike in February 2025, with two more increases planned in the next two fiscal years. Programs like Water4All are in place to help low-income households feeling the pressure, but not enough people enroll each year.
To fix that problem, the Office of Water Advocacy and Customer Appeals (WACA) unveiled a new proposal for auto-enrollment in Water4All as part of a streamlined process for increasing the program’s impact. At an Oct. 16 hearing held by the Baltimore City Committee on Legislative Investigations, WACA’s Chief R. Anthony Mills explained the three-tiered credit program proposed by his office. (Mills’ remarks start around the 57-minute mark.)
“One thing to emphasize is that this program is focused on equity,” Mills said. “It requires a lot of technicalities, going through a lot of formulas, unfortunately, and a number of applications. … [W]e do need to get more people enrolled and onboarded to Water4All in a quicker way.”
Explaining the three-tiered program, Mills said that on Tier 1, the program would be automated so that the customer would not have to do anything to be enrolled. This tier would be for older adults on Social Security income. The WACA office would automatically enroll them and apply the credit to their water bill.
Tier 2 would be for any city resident receiving public benefits. Like on Tier 1, those residents would not have to apply, either. The WACA office would enroll them and apply the credit to their water bill.
“It’s our thought that by automating and auto enrolling as many city residents as we can, that we’ll, one, increase the number, but also simplify the process so that anyone that is older who is not comfortable doing an online application, or doesn’t have the capacity to fill out a paper application – 50% of what MLCFS currently processes are paper applications – we would hopefully eliminate the majority of that with the first two tiers,” Mills said.
Tier 3 is for others who are not in the first two categories of receiving SSI or public assistance but meet the low-income requirements. They would follow the current process for applying to Water4All, where a resident must submit documents to verify that they qualify to receive the benefits of the program.
Water4All has helped nearly 15,000 Baltimore households so far. This is around 45 percent of the legislative enrollment goal, but the annual re-enrollment rate is only 11 percent.
Before the Committee’s first oversight hearing in September, the Baltimore Right to Water Coalition offered recommendations for improvements, which included improvements to the enrollment and re-enrollment process. They also suggested debt forgiveness.
“We applaud Chief Mills for advancing a plan to auto-enroll households in the Water4All program. This visionary framework will remove barriers to assistance for thousands of families,” said Mary Grant, Food & Water Watch’s Public Water for All program director, in a statement. “We look forward to working together on the successful implementation of this plan, and next, we need the city to address the ongoing crisis of household water debt. By auto-enrolling families in Water4All and providing water debt forgiveness, Baltimore City will protect the human right to water for all Baltimoreans.”
The Water Accountability and Equity Act, signed into law in 2020, established the Water4All program to address widespread concerns about unaffordable and inaccurate water bills. It provides financial assistance to eligible Baltimore City residents, providing a monthly discount for water and sewer costs based on a percentage of their income.
“We are excited that the Baltimore Customer Advocate’s Office has begun the process of auto-enrollment for the Water4All program,” said David Wheaton, assistant policy counsel at NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. “This extremely important step will ensure that low-income Baltimore residents will have access to affordable water and sewer services. Black Baltimore residents disproportionately struggle with water affordability and the Water4All program is a critical tool to ensure that more Black Baltimore residents are able to have affordable water.”
“The Water Advocate is offering a real solution to help more people pay their bills and to maximize Baltimore’s innovative Water4All program,” said Jaime Lee, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, in a statement. “Creative solutions like this are exactly why the Advocate’s Office exists.”
Mills noted at the hearing that any proposed changes must go through a public comment period, so these changes are not yet implemented or official. The proposed next steps, though, involve improving the functionality of the Water4All platform, consider accepting applications of residents beyond 200% of the federal poverty line, expanded outreach and marketing. All these proposals aim to help those typically struggling financially to access clean water in their homes.
The Water4All program is fully operational and accepting applications, which are available online. Applicants who would like a paper copy can call 410-396-5555.
