The city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently implemented a plan to shut off water service for certain single-family homes that are delinquent on their water bill.
This is a new tactic to try to collect water bills that are more than a year overdue and amount to at least $1,000. That means more than 6,000 single-family homes could be slated to have their water shut off in the next few months.
Greg Jost, of University Neighborhood Housing Program, said many of these properties are concentrated in minority communities, the very same areas suffering from the foreclosure crisis.
The DEP is offering a one-time affordable payment plan called the Payment Incentive Plan (PIP) to avoid service termination, but that offer expires Feb. 21. Jost says housing advocates are working to get the deadline extended, but until then they encourage everyone in danger of service termination to sign up for PIP.
Ed. note: For more information about PIP, call (718) 595-7000.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.