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Ventura Water seeks $35,000 to expand low-income assistance after affordability review
Summary
Ventura Water reported an affordability assessment that identified hundreds of households that remain cost-burdened after recent rate changes; staff proposed steps to expand enrollment through data-sharing with Southern California Edison and a trial with Ventura Housing Authority and requested a $35,000 increase to the CAP budget, which council approved.
Ventura Water staff updated the council on efforts to expand the Customer Assistance Program (CAP) on June 23, saying the program currently serves 468 enrolled customers with a $75,000 budget. Using census and billing data, staff reported an initial affordability finding of 971 single-family households not meeting the affordability target; after modeling the existing CAP discount the count fell to 597 households.
Staff recommended several outreach and enrollment strategies to reach eligible customers, including a data-sharing partnership with Southern California Edison that added roughly 60 households to the CAP through auto-enrollment, and a proposed trial with Ventura Housing Authority to include sub-metered multi-family units (potentially adding another 355 households if broadly implemented). Staff asked the council to increase the CAP budget by $35,000 (total not to exceed $110,000) to support these efforts; the council approved the budget increase unanimously.
Staff also described a planned fall Customer Assistance Program summit to share best practices with neighboring agencies and a targeted conservation outreach plan for enrolled households to offer rebates and services.
What’s next: staff will run the Ventura Housing Authority trial, continue the Edison data-matching enrollment, host a CAP summit in fall 2026, and return with measurement tools for program impact.
