Disadvantaged Communities Definition. The Safe Drinking Water Act defines a “disadvantaged community” as the service area of a public water system that meets affordability criteria established after public review and comment by the State in which the public water system is located. See 42 U.S.C. 300j-12 (d)(3). For Capitalization Grants through FFY 2021: Disadvantaged communities are areas where 51 percent of the residents are low-and moderate-income persons. These communities are identified by survey data published by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). Low to moderate income is defined as 80 percent of the median household income in the county or state (whichever is higher) using the most recent federal census or income survey data. Privately owned community public water systems will be considered eligible for disadvantaged community status if an income survey indicates that the service area meets the LMI criteria. Rural water systems will be considered eligible for disadvantaged community status if an income survey indicates that the area benefiting from the improvements meets the LMI criteria. Income surveys must be done according to the protocol specified by the Community Development Block Grant program. For FFY 2022 Capitalization Grants: During SFY 2023, the Iowa SRF Program adopted new criteria, a socioeconomic assessment score, to determine disadvantaged community status for SRF loan forgiveness purposes. The criteria were revised with public review and comment and became effective on September 20, 2022 with the approval of the second quarter IUP update. The socioeconomic assessment tool considers 15 datapoints from publicly available sources to determine a community or service area’s underlying socioeconomic and demographic condition that can determine the affordability of water/wastewater infrastructure projects. Applicants with a socioeconomic score between 11-30 points will be eligible for consideration of SRF loan forgiveness. A detailed description of the socioeconomic assessment criteria and tool is outlined in BIL Annex A to the DWSRF IUP. The socioeconomic assessment tool can be located on www.iowaSRF.com resource page. 18 The IA SRF Program will implement the new affordability criteria for both the base DWSRF Program and the BIL DWSRF General Supplemental Fund as outlined in BIL Annex A to the DWSRF IUP.
18 https://www.iowasrf.com/about_srf/srf-resources/
IOWA SRF INTENDED USE PLANS 2023 - DWSRF | Page 46
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