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 ...
Relocating to Detroit wouldn’t be something to take lightly but there are some nice neighborhoods in Detroit and surrounding cities in the greater Detroit area.
You will find greater personal freedoms in Detroit than you will in most American cities. No soda nazis, self defense is legal and encouraged etc.
Tell me, what percentage of nonworking Americans (of working age) would go to work everyday if offered a job?
I’m guessing less than 20%.
Note that in my initial post I did not at unemployed. I said not working.
How did it escape the health Nazis?
And just think.....if Obama and his leftist minions get their way...this kind of thing will be all over and all across America.
MLK had a dream. BHO has a nightmare. Coming soon to a city near you.
From the Wall Street Journal:
VIDEO (3 mins 48 secs): Why The US Is In An Invisible Depression
More might accept work if they could earn $50k+/year and not have to do anything....
Other third world cities have thriving small businesses due to relatively few regulations. I am thinking of Latin America, where the streets are commonly filled with vendors and tradespeople of all sorts.
If Detroit allowed folks to sell goods and services without going through a regulatory nightmare, the problem could be largely solved.
Despite the belief of many, Detroit isn’t terribly liberal in the social sense. For instance the city refuses to officially sign on to the lawsuit against Rick Snyder over his opposition to gay marriage.
The city is changing a lot. They’ve elected their first white mayor in nearly 50 years. Yeah he’s a democrat but the willingness to elect the only white guy in the race shows them moving away from the black nationalism that gripped the city for so long.
This doll may go without water..but she’s obviously not going without food.
Anybody can get a job in The Texas and North Dakota oil fields.
Anybody? What about people with three or more kids or folks 55 or older? What about home-owners that would have to take a huge loss on selling their homes if they moved, only to end up paying much more for their new digs? It's not practical for some to have to pick up and move to another city or state just to find work. And we shouldn't have to.
America's 'enemy within'....ie leftists have (deliberately so) made it impossible to live and prosper in America now. We need to fix THAT problem first and foremost. Having to move to another state just to work is not a viable solution.
I’ll bet fifty bucks there’s a 50-inch HDTV within twenty feet of Nicole....
I’ve used Detroit as an example in some of my classes. It’s not news that the city is poorly run, mishandles the money it does have, etc.
So, on one hand, I am willing to cut the woman some slack when she said that the water dept. wouldn’t/couldn’t do anything. I’m not surprised.
HOWEVER, why stay in the same place for 5 years if the water bill is so high and you can’t get any resolution to the problem? That’s just stupid.
My county, 30,000 strong has 96% white, 1% black and 3% other. It also has 6000 on SNAP alone. This is US Census data and from Georgia SNAP data. In my experience I do not recall seeing a black person use an EBT card here, mostly just white people and maybe a few Hispanics.
What this tells me is that it is not contained to just one group. The government has accomplished a sea change in our basic population irrespective of race. Very very bad news.
Only this time the Wall Street guys can’t even open up the windows to jump out!
Hey, just wait until the electric bills skyrocket...
This MUST BE BUSH’s REAGAN’s NIXON’s Hoover’s or LINCOLN’s fault (take your pick).
Excellent post but it’s almost impossible to get people here to move off “the narrative” that jobs are easy to come by (just drive a truck, little lady!) and moving the 90 year old mom to Texas while taking a giant loss on the house is a dandy idea.
Of course, the economy is in the toilet thanks to six horrible years of Obama and his stinking health care act. But let’s not spoil the narrative of lazy, slothful, unemployed, EBT-abusing, soda-and-chips-loving denizens of the dark.
And I’m not defending Nicole!
Can you demand a new meter? May be the problem.
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