Posted on 06/29/2014 4:54:35 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Nicole Hill holds up her past-due water bill at her home in Detroit. Her water has been off for about six weeks.
It has been six weeks since the city turned off Nicole Hill's water.
Dirty dishes are piled in the sink of her crowded kitchen, where the yellow-and-green linoleum floor is soiled and sticky. A small garbage can is filled with water from a neighbor, while a bigger one sits outside in the yard, where she hopes it will collect some rain. She's developed an intricate recycling system of washing the dishes, cleaning the floor and flushing the toilet with the same water.
"It's frightening, because you think this is something that only happens somewhere like Africa," said Hill, a single mother who is studying homeland security at a local college. "But now I know what they're going through — when I get somewhere there's a water faucet, I drink until my stomach hurts."
Hill is one of thousands of residents in Detroit who have had their water and sewer services turned off as part of a crackdown on customers who are behind on their bills. In April, the city set a target of cutting service to 3,000 customers a week who were more than $150 behind on their bills. In May, the water department sent out 46,000 warnings and cut off service to 4,531. The city says that cutting off water is the only way to get people to pay their bills as Detroit tries to emerge from bankruptcy — the utility is currently owed $90 million from customers, and nearly half the city's 300,000 or so accounts are past due.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Amen to that. I met some African Evangelicals, and they were SHOCKED by the attitude of "blacks" (their term) of African-Americans here.
I am not kidding. Their mouths were open. They were filled with shame and outrage.
No, she is a victim. She cannot pay a bill. She cannot fathom a water bill. It is not covered by her EBT card, or her Direct Deposit TANF. You must pay it for her.
She looks as though she could take me out with a single punch.
Knock Out Game - but you pay my water bill.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the state eventually does just that.
There are many, many, many more African immigrants in this country and in Europe that are decidedly not amazing, unless you consider the amount of violent crime they commit or welfare they consume to be amazing. Ask the residents of Minneapolis or Stockholm.
A nation can't make social policy based on the few exceptions.
culture of laziness is a learned behaviour, not a genetic one.
Even if that were true, the Mexicans and Central Americans are hard workers, so we are told, and their countries are rat holes. So it takes more than just hard work to build and maintain a 1st World civilization.
Yes, it is…and this is an interesting thread to go along with it.
She owes $5754 to the water company?
I would have cut off her water 4 years ago.
I wonder if she’s gotten any new tattoos in the past six weeks.
She’s “studying” homeland security at a local college. She will soon be working at the airport. Man, I feel safe!
She spent a little on hair straightener, too.
She has clearly been paying her Twinkie bill.
She is vey fragile...............”...............only Millions of bucks will correct it.
‘We are hiding out with no water’: Detroit privatizers deny poor people their right to water
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3173641/posts
Cutting off water to Detroit’s poor ‘an affront to human rights,’ says UN
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3173718/posts
Low cost starches, sugar and fats accelarate morbid obesity. I was in school in Mexico, my mother’s check was 3 weeks late after I had loaned friend 1/3rd my previous month’s check and he didn’t repay me. I bought cheap tortillas, and white flour rolls, and would have guys treat me to beer across the road. I put on 10 pounds, which fortunately I lost after I got back to the US and eating right.
In New York City, Washington, DC and other major cities, small street vendors have been driven out of business, police have been paid $5,000 or more to write repeated tickets for highly restrictive regulations and force an established vendor off a corner someone else is willing to pay bribe for. One hundred percent agree with your comment.
+1!
You voted African; you got Africa. Why are you complaining?
I had a problem with my water bill about three months ago. In one month, it jumped over $100. I shut off everything in the house (water wise) and went outside to look at the meter (it has a small red dial that reads in very fine increments of flow). Dead stopped cold.
I wrote down the reading and went back in to call the WD. Got the usual questions about recent work in the yard, etc. and then got to looking at the bill. The meter reader was off by one number in the second most significant place.
They had a supervisor come out and reread the meter and confirmed the reading and readjusted the bill.
All of this took 1/2 hour of my time and a telephone.
The fact is this woman is existing solely on probably about 5 entitlement and giveaway programs and she likely didn’t even look at her damned water bills until they shut the water off. She just never cared about it.
I'll talk about it. I will bet you that the $2,800 she's made in payments came from her last EITC check.
Unemployed head-of-household with three children would get near $4-5000. No job, going to school on a grant or student loan, Section 8 house, EITC, SNAP, (WICs if one of the kiddies is under 5), and likely drawing SSI for the kids. All she has to do is devote next year's EITC check to clearing up the bill.
Sorry, I just have no sympathy
Betcha she also has money for a cell phone.
She don’t need money for a cell phone. The gubmint has a program for her that GIVES a phone to her. It’s called an ObamaPhone.
I’ve said this over and over again here. She doesn’t pay anything for what she owes anybody using money she earned. There isn’t any other explanation of how this woman exists otherwise.
Everything she gets comes from entitlements. Feeling sorry for her or explaining away her circumstances is just an endorsement for entitlements and exercise in needless hand wringing that accomplishes nothing but perpetuation of same.
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