Denying Detroiters Water Is A Human Rights Tragedy

It’s not a stretch to compare Detroit to a third-world country. Not anymore. It’s been seven weeks since water has been turned off to thousands of Detroit residents, many of them unemployed, many of them with families and children, some of them single mothers who are barely making ends meet, in a city where the poverty rate is about 40 percent.

It’s unconscionable that people like Nicole Hill don’t have water to wash dirty dishes, take showers or baths, wash clothes and flush toilets in the sweltering summer heat.

“It’s frightening, because you think this is something that only happens somewhere like Africa,” said Hill, a single mother, told The Los Angeles Times. “But now I know what they’re going through — when I get somewhere there’s a water faucet, I drink until my stomach hurts.”

Thousands of people in Detroit – my hometown – had their water turned off because they were behind on their bills. In April, the city cut service to 3,000 customers a week who were more than $150 in debt to the water utility company. And in May, the city threatened to cut service to another 4,531 residents.

All told, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department said it would begin shutting off service to more than 150,000 customers who were behind in their bills, according to the Detroit Free Press. It’s not right. It’s not fair. And it borders on criminal. And it’s become – quite correctly — a human rights issue.

A coalition of human rights groups appealed to the United Nations saying they are “outraged about the violation of the human right to water and sanitation in the City of Detroit and call on the authorities to take immediate action to restore water services and stop further cut-offs. The United Nations experts declared that the city of Detroit’s denial of water to thousands of residents who are unable to pay their bills “constitutes a violation of the human right to water” and may be discriminatory against African-Americans.

“The households which suffered unjustified disconnections must be immediately reconnected,” UN Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha told reporters. “If these water disconnections disproportionately affect African-Americans they may be discriminatory, in violation of treaties the U.S. has ratified.”

The water utility company says its owed $90 million from customers and they will do whatever it takes to collect – which means cutting water to children and senior citizens. Detroit has an off-the-charts high unemployment rate and many Detroiters who lost their jobs got behind on their water utility bills because they are not working. To make it worse, the water company raised its rates during an economic downturn. In the past 10 years, Detroit residents have seen water rates rise by 119 percent as the city experienced bankruptcy, an economic meltdown, and a state takeover.

Last week, the Detroit City Council approved an 8.7 percent increase in water rates in addition to the initial water rate hike. No wonder Detroit residents are behind on their water bills. Detroit is one of the poorest big cities in America and its population is 93% Black. Black people are suffering, the result of massive layoffs over the years from the auto industry and a general collapse of Detroit’s economy.

On a recent trip to Detroit, I drove through neighborhoods where boarded-up homes stretched for blocks; it looked more like a war zone than a once thriving city where Motown was born. What about sick people? What about the elderly? Where is the compassion for fellow human beings?

“Are we the kind of people that resort to shutting water off when there are disabled people and seniors?” said Maureen Taylor, chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, told reporters. “We live near the Great Lakes, we have the greatest source of fresh water on Earth, and we still can’t get water here.”

It seems to me that the federal government could intervene.

It bailed out greedy bankers on Wall Street; it bailed out the auto industry; I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that the government bail out of the water-deprived residents of Detroit.

They deserve better. What do you think?

(Photo: AP)

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