Thousands Of Tulsans Receive Financial Help For Utility Bills

More than 2,000 Tulsans are about to receive financial assistance from a federal program to help keep their water on.

The City of Tulsa found a way to help 2,300 utility customers pay their water and sewer bills because they were at risk of losing water. Some had already been cut off from the service.

Tulsans who are eligible for the Low-Income Housing Water Assistance Program will get a lump sum of money to go toward their water bills. The amount varies depending on household size.

That money is sent from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services straight to the utility provider. It is then deducted from the bill until it runs out.

There's a little more than $800,000 allocated to Tulsans through this program and half of it has been distributed. The rest will go out by the end of the year.

The city's goal is to keep those Tulsans from running into water cutoff issues in the future.

"The city has had a public service program called the Financial Empowerment Center, or the FEC, where we have trained and certified financial counselors that can meet one-on-one with anyone in Tulsa to really talk about their financial situation and do just that; build that budget, figure out what and where they can move different things, to really stay ahead of those bills," said Janae Bradford with the City of Tulsa.

The FEC is free and available to anyone in Tulsa. CLICK HERE to find out more.