Thursday, November 21, 2024
11/21/2024
<p>Basic infrastructure, such as water and wastewater, is a building block that is essential to ensuring that a community is healthy and able to thrive, thus becoming sustainable. Assisting these facilities and in learning how to maintain, not only quantity but quality, as a building block is paramount to achieving long lasting vibrant communities. Lack of these services creates an ongoing issue of poverty, poor health, and limited economic opportunities. For more than 40 years, the Midwest Assistance Program, Inc. (MAP) has been assisting rural and tribal communities with water and wastewater infrastructure issues. MAP has been providing this service under OCS funding since 1981. Our approach to assisting these rural communities has always been “on-site”. We are there to provide guidance, instruction, oversight and training to achieve safe, compliant, and sustainable communities. We also have the ability to answer other questions that may develop during that interaction. We have learned that individuals in these small towns learn and retain more of the information when they are taught in person and the instruction is tailored to their situation. Rural and tribal communities in MAP’s nine state region have numerous and various issues when it comes to water and wastewater issues. It might be the landscapes, location, lack of funding, or having inexperienced, part-time and/or volunteer clerks, finance staff, boards, and operators that need more intensive assistance to work through their unique situations. MAP utilizes OCS funding on communities that are below 80% of the State Median Family Income (MFI) to help the most vulnerable in our region; however, we focus on communities that are below 60% of the State MFI. Many of these small towns have little or no access to the Internet or the funds to travel to training and conferences or no other assistance is available because it involves an unincorporated area. Thes e lowincome rural residents also need the assistance that we provide to ensure that they are developing the most cost-effective and affordable type of system as well as a system that they will be able to operate and maintain into the future. We will continue our approach to training and technical assistance with both on-site assistance and localized training to the low income small rural and tribal communities that under 2,500 population. Many of these systems do not have the financial means, coupled with part time staff to attend centralized training and conferences. The funding from this program, along with the leveraging that is achieved, will allow MAP to assist over 1,200 communities with technical assistance as well as provide training to at least 2,500 individuals over the 5-year period. MAP will also be providing resources, tools, and opportunities for tailored information through our website and an annual publication to these communities to ensure that they have the latest knowledge on issues that they need to be aware of.</p>
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
