Posted on 06/28/2014 5:50:44 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Every week, as some 3,000 additional families’ water is shut off by their “public” utility, Detroiters protest on Freedom Friday.
“We are hiding out in our own house with no water,” Shelah, a 15-year-old youth and poverty skola whispered on the phone to me. She went on to tell me she and her mama and 9-year-old brother were among thousands of poor families who have had their water service cut off in the last few months by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.
Since spring, up to 3,000 Detroit households per week have been getting their water shut off – for owing as little as $150 or two months in bills. This is the Detroit facing water privatization in which upward of 150,000 customers, late on bills that have increased 119 percent in the last decade, are now threatened with shut-offs. Detroit organizers estimate this could impact nearly half of Detroit’s mostly poor and Black population – between 200,000 and 300,000 people.
Privatization is the U.S. corporate answer to everything, and to Detroit, like Chicago and New Orleans and Oakland and hundreds of other U.S. cities, this means the private corporate theft of all of our public resources, including schools, parks, streets and housing. As us poor folks know, the result is we end up water-less, house-less, street-less and park-less – gentrified out of our own neighborhoods, schools and communities and shuttled into the biggest profit-maker of them all: plantation prisons.
This is nothing new. Poor people are always getting our so-called public utilities shut off. When me and my mama were dealing with our life-long poverty and about to be houseless in Oakland, all of our utilities were cut off. The first thing that happened was my mama was afraid CPS would find out and mark her as “negligent.” This is part of the deep criminalization and Catch 22 that poor families face all the time, causing us to not even seek so-called “help” for fear of more theft, removal and criminalization.
Since spring, up to 3,000 Detroit households per week have been getting their water shut off – for owing as little as $150 or two months in bills.
“My friend was put into foster care after her water got cut off,” Shelah whispered. She and her brother are among the many children who are now at risk of seizure by Children’s Separation Service, as it might as well be called, because after they take everything away from us poor folks, then they threaten to take our children. “That’s when we went into hiding,” she concluded.
This is nothing new. Poor people are always getting our so-called public utilities shut off.
Grassroots organizers have been fighting back.
A coalition of grassroots groups like Detroit People’s Water Board, Food and Water Watch and Canada-based Blue Planet Project issued a report on June 18 containing the testimony of people who are affected by the service shut-offs and said they were given no warning. They submitted the report, “Submission to the Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation regarding water cutoffs in the City of Detroit, Michigan,” to the United Nations naming these shut-offs as a violation of human rights.
The U.N. answered back: “Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights,” the U.N. officials said in a news release. “Because of a high poverty rate and a high unemployment rate, relatively expensive water bills in Detroit are unaffordable for a significant portion of the population.”
The public water system, a prized resource worth billions and sitting on the Great Lakes, is now the latest target of the private developers – and these mass water shut-offs of our people’s homes are a way to make the so-called public utility more attractive in the lead up to its privatization.
“Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights,” the U.N. officials said in a news release.
As po’ folks, our so-called public resources are always under attack, our so-called free lives, which were used, stolen and exploited to build this stolen land they call amerikkka, are always at risk of eviction, displacement, gentrification, death by police terror and/or incarceration. This is why us poor and landless stolen and diasporic Afrikans, criminalized, false bordered, indigenous and po’ folks at POOR Magazine are actively creating an international model for poor people-led change we call Homefulness in Deep East Ohlone Land (Oakland) where we take our stolen resources back, self-determined by us, and teach descendants of stolen wealth hoarders to redistribute their families’ stolen and hoarded blood-stained dollaz.
This is what we at POOR Magazine call Community Reparations. And this model needs to be practiced across the United Snakkkes of Amerikkka and the world so these violations of our human bodies, our communities and our land will cease to occur.
All power to the people in Detroit!
No surprise that the VA is one of the biggest deadbeats. My experience is that that public-sector customers are the slowest to pay, to the point that a lot of vendors (myself included) won’t sell to them.
Ahhh...how could I forget?
And the Obamaphone lady.
“and free relocation to a place where water is free”
And where would that place be, pray tell?
No walk through six feet of snow, uphill, both ways? You had it way too easy.
“We are hiding out in our own house with no water,” Shelah, a 15-year-old youth and poverty skola whispered on the phone to me.
“Water’s cheap. I have a 2,000 livable area square ft. Home on two acres and spend about $10.00/month on water.”
Somewhere in the article it talks about that they are trying to get people on a metered system, and shooting for $40 per month bills. And early on it said “$150 or two months”. Not sure if that means a month is around $75 or not.
I was going to recommend water rationing if they want to lower their bills - but it sounds like they aren’t metered anyway. I don’t know when clean water becomes “too expensive”, but if my city decided to just jack up the price to some flat rate to cover their mess, and then tell me we’ll turn your water off and take away your kids if you don’t pay your bill; I wouldn’t like it either.
Now if they are just complaining about the typical, “normal” water bill that they don’t pay - tell them to go to the library and search “how to build a water purifier”.
Why, it's right next to that there darn right to privacy to kill yer unborn!
“How am I supposed to pay these bills?”
Sell the big screen tv!
I sent the one who never asked some money because I helped the others. She sent me a nice thank you note and said she had bought the boys new car seats they needed. She's having a hard time, her husband (one of my grandsons) is on the George W. H. Bush carrier. She was going to get to have a little vacation in Dubai but that got cancelled.
I've had my water turned off twice through carelessness of letting the due date slip by and then ran out the grace period if there was one. We get billed every three months.
Well, I scrambled to get the money, pay the bill then the extra charge for coming out to the house. I learned to pay the bill on time but if I got sick or something, I don't know if there is anybody who would look out for me for things like that or not and hope I don't have to find out.
The “where’s my free shit?” crowd is upset.
How much you want to bet tha huge TV is hooked up to a cable or sattelite service with several hundred channels? How much do you want to bet said bill is more than they owe for water?
Sort of like a 450 welfare queen say she doesn’t get enough food stamps to feed her children.
When I was I school, I noticed a trend among the students who got loads of aid. If you tried to take a shower in most dorms at say 6 am, it might take a while to get hot water depending on what shower you used. By the time most students got up hot water was nearly instantly available at every shower or sink.
However, word got around that “the showers be takin’ a longs times to get hot” to that crowed and no matter what the time, they would enter the shower, crank it to full hot and leave back to their room for a good 5 minutes, every day. But what did they care, they weren’t paying the bills, someone else was.
This is the Detroit facing water privatization in which upward of 150,000 customers, late on bills that have increased 119 percent in the last decade, are now threatened with shut-offs. Detroit organizers estimate this could impact nearly half of Detroit’s mostly poor and Black population – between 200,000 and 300,000 people.
What will they do when those behind “water privitization” give up and leave. Water doesn’t deliver it’s self.
Ever heard of a “Cargo Cult?” That’s what we have here.
Lady, my TV is 15 years old Samsung. That is a $1000.00+ Tv behind you. You buy a TV, we pay our water bills. Cry me a river or dig a well.
The U.N. answered back: “Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights,” the U.N. officials said in a news release. “Because of a high poverty rate and a high unemployment rate, relatively expensive water bills in Detroit are unaffordable for a significant portion of the population.”
What about the basic human right to not be raped by UN Peacekeepers?
NY has water. In fact it has a whole ocean and its free for drinkin.
Yeah smarty-pants! But they’re in Detroit, like Detroit MICHIGAN! It’s not like Michigan has a bunch of “Great Lakes” or something! Duh!
I am responsible for the condition of my family....not the government, nor a privatized utility company. It is my responsibility to provide for them.
The rivers, and ground waters are not too polluted to drink. The only time I’ve had water from a municipality was while serving in the Marine Corps. The rest, including now, has been well drawn, and I have a stream a quarter of a mile away from where I live.
Your existence is your responsibility. You have God given natural law....life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Pursuit of happiness is up to your determination. My determination is owning my own property, growing my own food, and making sure that all of my family’s needs are taken care of BY ME. Water included.
You come from a country where the wealthy ruled; guess what, you came to a country that is changing to the Homeland you left.
Sorry for your bad luck, buddy....I’m not going to give up my freedom.
Takes a little work, but I don’t pay for water.
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