Governor’s Water Project

Southeast RCAP has completed a new home for Carson Warner in the Ebenezer community of Buckingham County, bringing the family reliable indoor plumbing for the first time in over a decade. Warner and his family now have a modest two bedroom home due to an initiative called the “Governor’s Water Project.” The program was created by Governor Tim Kaine to give all Virginians access to clean drinking water by the end of his term. According to US Census data, there are over 19,500 occupied homes in the Commonwealth which still lack complete indoor plumbing.

For more than a decade, Warner, his wife and daughter lived in a 1970s era single-wide trailer on family land in Ebenezer. A contaminated community well served the home, but the trailer’s plumbing was unreliable and it lacked bathroom facilities. Like hundreds of other rural Virginians, the family was forced to use an outdoor privy. Paul Moyer, Rural Housing Specialist with Southeast RCAP, said the home was identified as a good candidate for the Governor’s program because of the cluster of other homes in the community in the same condition. Governor Tim Kaine is pictured above with Paul Moyer at the Governor's Housing Conference in Roanoke, Virginia in November 2007. Mike Yoder, general contractor for the construction project, will target three more homes for completion in the spring.

“Thank God you all came to help when you did,” Warner said when receiving keys to his new house. “God has just blessed me and my family.”

The Governor’s Water Project initiative involves Southeast RCAP’s partnership with Governor Kaine and other state agencies to eliminate the problem of homes lacking functional indoor plumbing. At the 2006 Environment Virginia conference at Virginia Military Institute, Governor Kaine committed during his term in office to bring water to all of those homes still lacking water and plumbing. He said,

“Clean reliable drinking water and safe wastewater systems are essential to the health of our families. In rural localities, it is equally important to economic development. I am making it a goal of my administration to see that every home in Virginia has access to clean reliable drinking water by the end of my term.”

Southeast RCAP has been tapped as the agency in the state to address this problem while working with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. The program is not a weatherization program or meant simply to repair homes that have bad plumbing. It is designed to address the need of those homes which lack hot and cold piped water, a bathtub or shower, toilet facilities, and a functioning kitchen sink. To qualify for the program, the residents must either own the home or have lifetime rights to the property and meet other income standards.