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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There isn’t enough of it left, so I guess it is a right.
The right to water is subsumed within the right to life.
Mike – so, does a right to life mean you have a right not to die?
James – I am sure you do not want children in a house with no potable water.
In Arizona you cannot be refused water if you ask for it, but they can turn off your water if you are not paying your bills. Happens all the time. Detroit is disaster of its own making.
I was obviously incorrect.
James, When her kids got angry and said what was on their minds, my mom would often smile and say, “Better out than in.” I don’t think you crossed the line w/ your comment and feel confident JT would not either.
If I think something, like this post, is liberal drivel I will say so. My comments put the blame on Detroit on the one party that ruled it for decades. I point out that there are exponentially more people worldwide who have no complicity in their much more severe water problems. You did not respond to those comments. That tells me a lot.
My sincerest apologies, rafflaw, for misnaming you in my response to your article. The brain sometimes plays tricks on one, and also for not acknowledging that you too would not have posed the question if you did not believe water to be a right of all human beings, and in my opinion, all life on earth.
I’d like to also say that all utilities should be public as that is the only way we can most easily prevent the kind of greed and predation all too clearly in evidence on Wall Street and the corporate suites of the country and that are on display in Detroit right now.
James Knauer, I have deleted a comment which was in obvious violation of our civility rule.
We’ll shut off your water and take your kids away from you.
Barbarism is alive and well in America.
Thank you for the post Mr. Rafferty. It would have been better if you were better informed, as Elaine M. is, with the background to Detroit’s problems and more knowledge of the actual unemployment rate of African Americans and the impact of globalization on them, which is worse than any other group, which is as high as 50% in many cities. And with African Americans and Hispanics being prosecuted and sentenced to long prison terms, unlike their white fellow citizens for the same crimes, the problems of Detroit and every other population of African Americans are compounded and constantly being justified on the basis of the destructive and repressive War on Drugs. And, yes, water is a human right, just as is food, medical care, education, and decent homes of all kinds.
Elaine M., I thank you once again for your excellent comments, which are humane and very well informed.
I am saddened once again by the nastiness and the ignorance of most of the commentors on this site. It is a wonder that the professor hasn’t given up once again and closed the site down.
The banks and hedge funders and other Wall Street low life are those truly responsible for Detroit’s woes, not so-called liberal philosophy. The pensions are little above subsistence levels for most pensioners. There was once a time in America when liberalism, for all its sins in the national security area, and its lack of imagination and empathy in the end as it sold out to Wall Street, was the home of what little humanity was extant in an America of big business, worship of the rich, narrow-minded Calvinist provincialism, general all around know nothingness, and racial and gender bigotry, which are now totally at home in the Republican Party and not being countered strongly enough by the Democratic Party.
Also, the President is not a liberal, nor is he a socialist. He like the right does not believe in democracy, judging by his record. He is a corporatist and a believer in American exceptionalism which would have made him respected in the old Republican party, which definitely had a place for a weakened sort of democracy just as the Democrats had, but believe to be Satan himself by the one we are afflicted with at present.
As with everything about today’s Republican Party, the people in charge of Detroit are coming in for the kill, and in the process, getting rid of the city’s African Americans, which the present party desires, for the purpose of gentrification and high-cost real estate development for wealthy whites. That is why they cut off water to African-American citizens and not to businesses.
And, having abandoned liberalism, the people who lead today’s Democratic Party are willing to stand by and let it happen. The mainstream media is run for the benefit of America’s foreign policy establishment and the corporations, hence you will find very little truth in the little they do address in terms of the nation’s and the world’s problems and the real conditions of citizens of every color.
“Hostile?”
Water Right? The right to obtain God’s water and the right to dispose of it. The right to dispose of your poop.
My earlier post did not get any reaction. The Right to water and to dispose of it is an issue addressed by many humans in an independent manner. Many towns and county governments impose on your rights.
On the 8th Day God created Dog to come to Earth to give support and guidance to humans. So listen up.
Gods water comes down from the clouds shared with the internet and we call it rain.. If you have a roof over your head then you can put gutters around the roof, put a downspout at the end of the gutters and run all of the water through a filter into a tank in the ground (yes water runs downhill Earthlings) which in America the land of the free is called a cistern. Then you buy an electric pump and pump the water into the house water supply pipes.
Sewer? Cut your sewer off at the basement and divert into what is known in America as a septic tank out in the ground in the yard.
C-Head? Y’all have heard of C-Head. This is a compost toilet. It is a toilet seat on a frame mounted over a plastic bucket and there is a front loading diverter for the pee which goes into a milk jug. This eliminates the poop and pee into the sewer thing. You empty the bucket and spray for bugs every five days. More if you are a big pooper.
With the above you are independent and do not have to pay say $40 for sewer and $50 for water a month.
This is your God given right as told to you by Dog.
The next topic will be free electricity. It is called solar power.
The 8th Day Dog Adventists meet each Saturday at a church near you.
Bark.
Annie,
His hostility towards me and his negative comments about me are incessant. It’s gotten tedious at this point. That said, I’m inured to his behavior on this blog. Maybe he should stick pins in a voodoo doll of me to release his pent-up anger.
😉
Most people read the links and learn something.
Water balloon linkathon on Monday morning. Few thoughts, just liberal links.
‘Water Is a Human Right’: Advocates Call for End to Detroit Water Shutoffs
Teddy Wilson
by Teddy Wilson, Reporting Fellow, RH Reality Check
July 17, 2014
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/07/17/water-human-right-advocates-call-end-detroit-water-shutoffs/
Excerpt:
In June, amid these collection efforts, the city council voted to approve an 8.7 percent increase in water rates. This will increase the average resident’s bill from $65 to $70 per month, which is about $35 higher than the national average. Residents have reportedly seen their water rates increase by 119 percent over the last decade. The rate increase was passed in a 6-2 vote, with Council President Pro Tem George Cushingberry and Council member Mary Sheffield voting against the increase.
Sheffield told RH Reality Check that she voted against the increase because she believes there are issues the DWSD should address first before increasing the water bills of residents. “There have been several calls to my office from people who have been paying their bills and are getting shutoff notices,” said Sheffield. “People are also complaining about vacant homes with running water that can help drive up cost, that the department is now seeking residents to pay for.”
In recent years, Detroit has gone through a drastic period of depopulation, in large part due to the economic effects of the loss of manufacturing jobs coupled with the subprime mortgage crisis, which has led to an unusually large number of vacant homes for a major U.S. city.
Many of the residents in the district that Sheffield represents have come to her with complaints about the water department’s collection efforts. She’s heard from residents who claim to have paid their bill in full but still received shutoff notices, and residents who have attempted to make payments on their bill but cannot afford the steep late fees. Sheffield’s District 5 is the most diverse in the city. Thirty-nine percent of the district’s residents are Black, and 38 percent are Latino; they are also the poorest residents in the city, with a per capita annual income of $16,753…
The shutoffs could have a significant effect on public health, in a city that is already facing significant public health issues. “Of course it poses a true public health issue when you’re talking about water,” said Council member Sheffield. “Water is a human right. If you’re cutting off access to people’s clean running water, there definitely is a public health issue.”
A recent report found that children in Detroit are dying at a greater rate than in any U.S. city its size or larger. Another report found that residents of Wayne County, where Detroit is located, are the least healthy in the entire state. At the same time, state lawmakers have reduced funding for health care for low-income residents, and the rising poverty rate has had a direct negative effect on reproductive health outcomes; the city’s abortion rate and infant mortality are drastically higher than in the rest of the state.
It was exclusively Dem politicians that turned Detroit into Thunderdome, and it’s Dems doing the same to other cities.
slohrss29
The ongoing war of the corporatist government against the commoner. Indeed, let them eat cake… or pucks in this case.
*****
That corporatist government gets lots of assistance from too many politicians who are only too eager to assist them–as well as from some members of the press/MSM.
Again, Water.org is a worthy charity for people w/ actual water access problems. Millions die annually from contaminated drinking water. 783 million people live w/o potable water.
The ongoing war of the corporatist government against the commoner. Indeed, let them eat cake… or pucks in this case.
Water gushes in thousands of vacant buildings as Detroit shuts off occupied homes
Steve Neavling
7/21/14
http://motorcitymuckraker.com/blog/2014/07/21/water-runs-in-thousands-of-vacant-buildings-as-detroit-shuts-off-occupied-homes/
Excerpt:
A long-abandoned factory floor on Detroit’s west side is 4 inches deep in gushing water. At the Belle Isle Nature Zoo, which closed 12 years ago, water sprouts from a hole in the pavement like a fountain. And in numerous abandoned schools, water flows freely from broken pipes and floods classrooms and hallways.
Over the past year, we inspected more than 100 vacant homes, schools, libraries, churches, hospitals, factories and government buildings and found that roughly 20% still had running, leaking water. Even two vacant fire stations were flooded with water after thieves stole copper pipes.
As water gushes endlessly from thousands of abandoned buildings and houses, the city has shut off water to more than 15,000 delinquent homeowners and landlords under the order of Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. The running water drives up water bills in a city where 38% of the population lives in poverty.
And although the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is already unable to keep pace with shutoffs at abandoned buildings, Orr plans to drastically reduce the department’s staff while paying up to $6 million to turn off water to delinquent customers.