Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
I have been watching the water crisis in Detroit for some time now and I have been amazed that it is not a bigger story. If you haven’t heard, the new city Administrator of the City of Detroit that was appointed by the Governor and his Water Department have been turning off the water of needy citizens in Detroit when their past due bills are as little as $150.00. In a city with over 20% unemployment and countless vacant buildings, it seems like Detroit is slowly being destroyed.
“It may not have been a police crackdown, but what she witnessed was definitely a crackdown of a sort. Since last year, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has been turning off water at the homes of customers behind on their bills. The shut-off campaign comes at a time of crisis and hastened recovery for Detroit, which became the largest American city to ever file for bankruptcy last summer. The value of the bonds associated with the water department’s debt comes to $5.7 billion, which constitutes almost one-third of the amount estimated to have pushed Detroit into bankruptcy.
The campaign to crack down on overdue bills—which is aimed at customers who are more than two months behind on their bills or who owe more than $150—has been described by activists and scholars alike as an effort, pushed by the city’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to get rid of the bad debt associated with the water department and prep the public entity for privatization.
In a city where the median household income is less than half the national average, 38 percent of residents live below the poverty line and 23 percent are unemployed, it comes as no surprise that at least 40 percent of customers are delinquent on their bills.
The water shut-offs have taken no prisoners. Since this year’s shut-offs started at the end of March, at least 15,000 Detroit households have had their water turned off. But the campaign, a tactic designed to pressure Detroiters into paying their water bills, began with little or no publicity last year, when 24,000 homes had their water shut off, says Darryl Latimer, the deputy director of the water department.” The Atlantic
Since last year, over 34,000 homes have had their water shut off by the City of Detroit and hardly anyone outside of Michigan has noticed. While I am sure that there are some real scofflaws in some of those 34,000 homes, many more are behind in their water payments because they are already strapped for financial resources. When you see the number of unemployed and the statistic that 38 percent of Detroit residents live below the poverty line, it seems clear that a large percentage of the home shut off from an essential human need, do not have the ability to pay.
Should any city be allowed to cut off water to needy residents for any amount? With the shenanigans that went on to get Detroit into bankruptcy, I guess I should not be surprised at the idea that an essential human need can be denied American citizens over such small amounts of money. Is there any hope for the up to 100,000 citizens impacted by the water shut-off?
Lately some of the citizens of Detroit have been hitting the streets to demonstrate against the cutoffs and some have even resorted to illegally turning the water back on. However, many are trying not to make waves because they fear repercussions if government agencies find out that their water service has been cut off.
“Residents targeted by the shut-off campaign have been reluctant to speak up. Some have stayed quiet because they’ve resorted to illegally hiring plumbers, and others—who are without water and relying on neighbors and friends for drinking water and showers—are afraid child-protective services may intervene, as a lack of running water is grounds for social services to immediately take children out of parents’ care.
Even those without children remain reticent. Some feel tarred by a general notion of shame and culpability for not being able to meet such a bare necessity as water. Last week, a headline in one of the local newspapers, The Detroit News, described delinquent customers as “water scofflaws.”
This stigma is enhanced by the painting of blue lines in front of those houses that have just had their water turned off—lines painted by Homrich’s employees after a job is completed. Streets to the south of Roslyn Walker’s home showed blue line after blue line; among non-vacant houses, shut-off water was the norm.
Monica Lewis-Patrick, a community organizer who has been going door to door with fellow activists in order to raise awareness and distribute water, says she has come across old-age pensioners who—not knowing where to turn after their taps were closed off—have gone without running water for almost a year.” The Atlantic
One of the organizers of the most recent demonstration against the water cutoffs was the National Nurses United. This organization went on the record to decry these shut-offs.
“The union National Nurses United (NNU) was one of the national groups involved in organizing the rally. Nurses from the group told msnbc that the water shut-offs, which have thus far directly affected thousands of residents, present a direct threat to public health.
“Water is one of the most basic human needs that we all require,” said NNU official Bonnie Castillo. “And we know that it will result in a public health emergency. Not only for individual health, but community health, in terms of infectious diseases. Individuals can only live without water for a couple of days.” ‘ Crooks and Liars
Should the water be turned off for any resident, of any city or town in the United States because the resident does not have the financial resources to pay for water? I was taught by the good Benedictine Sisters that it was mandatory to take care of the poor. When American city governments start painting lines to delineate who is paying and who is not paying their water bills, have they gone too far?
How can we consider ourselves a great nation, when we treat all of the poor as scofflaws or lazy? Does Kevyn Orr, the Emergency Manager of the City of Detroit have no shame?
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Byron, I often say, weekends here are like going back in a time machine to the 60’s. I turn on the lava lamp and open up a bottle of patchouli oil.
It rains a lot in Detroit. You run the gutter into a downspout and run the downspout into a filter and thence into the cistern. You then buy a pump and pump the water back into the home and the system. It is done all over America and I am sure that some De Troit folks know about it. More people ought to do this. Oh, when the cistern runs dry from low rainfall you pay a guy to come by with the water truck and fill the cistern. Chime in if you have heard of this.
nick:
water is a commodity like any other, too much socialism and not enough water.
I wonder what made companies leave detroit? Honda has a modern manufacturing plant outside of Nashville.
Funny isnt it?
Water.org is Matt Damon’s charity and very worthy of support. Like the Salvation Army, it has low overhead cost w/ almost all your donation going to people in need. Always check out the overhead of charities before donating. The Red Cross is horrible.
783 million people in this world do not have access to clean drinking water. Millions DIE from water borne disease annually. They are true victims and for whom I contribute and pray. This post is ludicrous.
wow at how some posters actually think water is a privilege NOT A RIGHT much like eating. but then monsanto has taken care of the eating part by suing and bankrupting farmers for NOT using their gmo seeds to grow food.. but hey since you all seem to love your enslavement to the corporation who am i to interfere. i mean there is a reason humanity is a human resouce right?
Question: What is a berth? To come into or dock at a wharf such as when a ship comes into a dock, it arrives. So consequently, when a ship pulls into a port, it pulls in and stops, that is called its berth, because the ship has now arrived. So because it is on the laws of the high seas, it is governed by the UCC Commercial Law. So when the ship pulls in to it’s berth, the first thing the captain must do is to present a certificate of manifest to the port authorities. What is a certificate of manifest? It is a document listing a ship’s contents, cargo, crew, and passengers. So whatever the ship brings in at berth, the captain has to present a certificate of manifest showing the identity and value of the items on the ship. Now consequently, when people are born, they come out of their mother’s water, therefore they must have a birth certificate, which is a certificate of manifest, because the people are considered a corporation owned item, they are a human resource. This goes back to the German Nazi concept, that every human coming out of their mother’s water must be birthed, and therefore the people have to have a certificate of manifest, to see who this individual is and how much they are going to make for the government in their New World Order.
So, since the U.S. went bankrupt in 1933, all new money has to be borrowed into existence. All states started issuing serial-numbered, certificated “warehouse receipts” for births and marriages in order to pledge the people as collateral against those loans and municipal bonds taken out with the Federal Reserve’s banks. The “Full faith and credit” of the American people is said to be that which back the nation’s debt. That simply means the American people’s ability to labor and pay back that debt. In order to catalog its laborers, the government needed an efficient, methodical system of tracking its property to that end. Humans today are looked upon merely as resources – “human resources,”
http://macquirelatory.com/Birth%20Certificate%20Truth.htm
Not all delinquent water customers are created equal nor Re all being shut off. Look at this except from a report on the shut offs:
“While the vast majority of the nearly 165,000 delinquent accounts reported in March are residential clients, those private households owe much smaller amounts than the commercial and industrial clients who are delinquent on their DWSD bills. Fewer than 11,000 delinquent accounts relate to commercial or industrial clients. But those delinquencies average more than $7,700 per business, according to the numbers published in the Detroit News in March, compared to an average debt of less than $600 per residential delinquency. Non-residential clients account for almost half of what DWSD is owed despite being less than 7 percent of total delinquencies, according to the March figures.” Interesting then that most if not subst stilly all of the shut off victims are poor residential clients.
Byron, Charles, et al,
Fascism/socialism isn’t what bankrupt Detroit and forced more of its people into poverty to the point that they have to decide which human need they have to forgo or not pay. It is the loss of good paying jobs that corporations sent overseas and out of state. Why is it surprising that some people paid their bill when they were threatened? Why should we believe the Detroit News who often act as a cheerleader for Kevyn Orr and his penal actions against the citizens of the city who did not elect him to run their town? What you are not asking is what bill was not paid in order for the citizens to keep the water flowing?
The biggest winner from the bankruptcy isn’t the people of Detroit. It is the corporate bond holders. I think you may want to look up the definitions of socialism and fascism.
Byron, Will NYC, LA or Chicago be next?
rafflaw:
the responsible party is the Detroit City government. They caused the problem through their fascist/socialist programs.
Detroit is nothing more than the concrete manifestation of progressive abstractions when they are implemented on living human beings with no restraints.
What Detroit needs is an injection of capitalism and freedom. Once that happens, the water will take care of itself.
Samantha, Brava! I somehow don’t think this post is getting the desired response.
Charles Ely, BRAVO! Intellectual dishonesty is rampant here on weekends. Way to do your homework. “The truth shall make you free.”
While raff is leaning towards water stamps for the poor, do you suppose these people could learn how to save some money using this idea, and pay their own water bill? At what point do we stop reinforcing the notion that if I stop helping myself, someone else will come to my aid?
My $1.50 a Day Challenge: Eating a Plant-Based Diet on an Austere Budget
By Darshana Thacker
Posted on September 10, 2013
http://www.forksoverknives.com/my-1-50-a-day-challenge-eating-a-plant-based-diet-on-an-austere-budget/
? Michigan is still part of the USA right? Nothing in the Constitution about free water. City probably has a duty to provide water at a not unreasonable price. That’s it. Pay no rent, expect to move. Miss car payments, expect repo. Some socialist countries might have other arrangements. I’m glad we don’t.
Charles Ely: Brilliant post, especially since all it took was a little research to debunk the premise: people have a right to free water. Pretty good illustration of how the lessons of capitalism (“if you don’t pay, you don’t get”), even in government operations, are so much more effective than the lessons of socialism/liberalism (“he has a right to it”). Thank you, sir.
I look forward to the article that people have a right to food, and that the capitalist cretins at Safeway who insist that their customers pay for their groceries are, well, capitalist cretins.
Me, I have a right to a Mercedes. Anyone have the ACLU 800 number?
Residents of an incorporated city within the United State have a right to potable water. If the city has a municipal water system, the City must use that system to supply its residents with potable water. I live in a city that mismanaged its municipal water system leading it to have to raise prices to pay for bonds which became necessary to fix that mismanagement. Detroit must do the same. The problem is, Detroit is in such an economically disastrous area that affordable bonds will not issue. If the system is allowed to fail, citizens are not likely to be able to draw water from wells. So citizens will have to leave. Detroit will continue on its downward spiral. But take hope. According to Mitt Romney, the trees are just the right height!
Since the economy looks weak for the long run in Detroit, lets think self reliance and take advantage of Lake Erie. That is how we need to think about problems. Take control of what you can.
Even if Water is a Right the question of whether Water Piped to your Home is a Right is open.
Detroit, a once great city destroyed by the long term rule of liberal Democrats. You might take note of the fact that the Detroit press is not so sympathetic. From your own link to the Detroit News; “This is a Detroit riff on the “broken window theory” of revival. By moving to repair what’s long been broken, accepted by many and exploited by some, the department is leading its own effort to modernize a culture marked by entitlement and abandonment.They’re saying, quite logically, that customers who do pay their bills should not be expected to subsidize in perpetuity those who don’t. And because they don’t pay, it’s not fair — which it’s not — to keep raising rates on payers because others don’t, or won’t, pay their bills.It’s been that way too long, which is part of the problem. Customers didn’t pay, and the department did not press very hard to collect. Not just residential customers, either. Prominent businesses, nonprofits, hospitals and others populate an official list of non-payers that is having the dramatic effect of forcing the deadbeats to the department’s pay window, a spokesman says.Roughly 60 percent of people whose water is shut off for lack of payment show up to settle their bills within 24 hours of the shut-off. And 40 percent of the remaining 40 percent follow up within 48 hours, suggesting that a large number of folks fail to pay their bills because they choose not to — not because they can’t. …Are there people in Detroit, the poorest major city in America, who cannot afford to pay their water bills? Of course there are — and the water department offers programs to help those who can demonstrate the need, including a million-dollar Detroit Residential Water Assistance Program announced this week.”