Thousands Denied Water in Detroit

[nucklehead]

Water is a human right. Yet every week, hundreds of Detroit residents are having their water ruthlessly cut off by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, despite living on the Great Lakes, which carry one-fifth of the worlds water supply. People are given no warning and no time to fill buckets, sinks or tubs. Families, seniors, sick and injured people and those with special needs are left without running water and working toilets, including vulnerable populations, sick people and others with special needs. People recovering from surgery cannot wash and change bandages. Children cannot bathe and parents cannot cook. The plan to cut off water to 150,000 households by the end of the summer is part of the plan to sell off and privatize Detroits water system. In order to make the utility attractive to investors, lower-income households are being forced to pay exorbitant rates for their water and sewer services or see their access cut. Water rates have risen in Detroit by 119 per cent in the last decade. With unemployment rates at a record high, and the poverty rate at about 40 per cent, Detroit water bills are unaffordable to a significant portion of the population.

http://www.blueplanetproject.net/index.php/home/local-campaigns/detroit/

[Sweathog]

My Lord, is human life worth nothing to these people?

[inane]

Privatization is totally the answer. It's cost effective! People? Human rights? who cares there's money to be made!

[-DLC-]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/24/canadians-deliver-water-to-protest-detroit-shutoffs/13130625/

DETROIT — Protesters fighting water shutoffs in Detroit greeted a convoy of Canadians who traveled to the city with hundreds of gallons of water to help those who have been cut off because of unpaid bills.

Maude Barlow, a leading water rights advocate in Canada, and other activists brought 750 gallons of water in a seven-vehicle convoy that traveled through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel to deliver the water and the message that the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department's policy of shutting off service to delinquent customers violates the United Nations' 2010 declaration that water is a human right.

"What that means is that every country in the world is responsible for looking after their most vulnerable people," said Barlow, national chairwoman of the Council of Canadians, a social advocacy group. "It means that every country in the world is not allowed to turn the tap off of water that is already being delivered, and it means that nobody has the right to say no to water for people who cannot afford it."

USATODAY

Detroit faces heat over water shutoffs

It was the latest protest since the city declared a 15-day pause in shutoffs of residential customers as Detroit drew international attention for cutting water service in an effort to collect millions of dollars in unpaid bills.

Detroit says it has 90,000 delinquent accounts totaling more than $90 million. The city has been stepping up collections efforts since last fall, and in April and May alone cut off service to more than 7,500 customers — moves that have prompted outrage among groups that advocate for poor people in a city with deep unemployment and the scars of decades of neglect.

USATODAY

Detroit suspends water shutoffs for 15 days

The shutoffs drew criticism from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, who said the policy was giving the city a negative image even as it fights for its financial future in its historic Chapter 9 bankruptcy case.

City officials told him they're working to expand education efforts and to pull together more financial assistance for customers without the means to pay.

Paul Moist, national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, also was in the convoy and said that, while the water the Canadians delivered was small, it was meant to be a symbolic criticism of corporate, right-wing policies that pit poor people against others.

"America is better than this," he said. "If the richest country in the world can bail out banks and bail out Wall Street with public money, then public money from the state level and the national level can be used to help the people of Detroit who are in harm's way health-wise without water."

[Mr. Ambien]

Not Wall Street, therefore, not worth the effort.

Change I can believe in.

[key2thecup]

The US gives $8 Million/day in foreign aid to a certain affluent Middle East country >>>>>>>> Water for it's people.

[Offensive Threat]

Detroits bankrupt. Been going through bankruptcy courts for a while now and suddenly its news that they cant afford to maintain basic services for their people? The fire department is a skeleton crew, there are barely any police left and the ones that are left have no equipment. Ambulances, garbage trucks, etc are a rare sighting.

My question is why do people stay in a dying city? When they got laid off at whatever auto plant why didnt they move out? Many did but the ones who stayed, why?

[Mathew Barzal]

Natural selection at work.

I kid. kid.

[Mr. Ambien]

Detroits bankrupt. Been going through bankruptcy courts for a while now and suddenly its news that they cant afford to maintain basic services for their people? The fire department is a skeleton crew, there are barely any police left and the ones that are left have no equipment. Ambulances, garbage trucks, etc are a rare sighting.

My question is why do people stay in a dying city? When they got laid off at whatever auto plant why didnt they move out? Many did but the ones who stayed, why?

There was good communities in the Detroit area, well, were once in Detroit, most moved out into the burbs while most of the scum stayed. I have a few family members that stayed in that area, rather than move back across the Ambassador to Windsor.

Of course, there was just news that the Red Wings just got an arena financed with hundreds of millions of government money (something like 60% government, 40% Illitches).. I can't imagine where the government dough came from while that city is in bankruptcy. I'm amazed at the idiots that would dare lend money to Americans at this point, no less the city of Detroit. Saw the same saga occur over a broke Glendale Arizona with the Arizona Coyotes and using government going into debt to finance a retail sector.

What the US is turning into is really not something that should be happening. Their laws and government have turned that country inside out with these FTA's and Federal Reserve policies.. Detroit, Flint.. used to be major producing cities with plenty of unskilled middle class jobs, all offshored. Americans used to save and invest, now they practically live to consume and borrow.

Should be a harbinger, since we've decided to go the US route and will eventually face the same problem too at this rate.

[SabreFan1]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/24/canadians-deliver-water-to-protest-detroit-shutoffs/13130625/

Venezuela provides humanitarian aid to poor Americans who can't afford heating oil. What's even more pathetic is that the U.S. government complains every year about it. However there's nothing that the U.S. administration can do about it since it is distributed by Venezuela's fuel company Citgo that does business in the U.S.

Bush and Obama complained/complain about the Venezuelan program while at the same time kept, and still keeps cutting fuel aid to the poor.

Here's a 2012 article about it: http://mic.com/articles/3357/hugo-chavez-gives-heating-aid-to-u-s-poor-following-obama-budget-cuts

Here's Citgo's web page that advertises the program http://www.citgoheatingoil.com/about-programoverview.html

Now thousands of United States citizens need humanitarian aid by another foreign country just to have drinking water.

How messed up is that? This country has no shame.

[ronthecivil]

This is the kind of thing that happens when finance is completely ignored. Eventually people stop lending you money and your forced to sell what you have and not from a very good position.

[ronthecivil]

Privatization is totally the answer. It's cost effective! People? Human rights? who cares there's money to be made!

The other option, with no money to operate, would be to shut it down, and nobody would have water.

[SabreFan1]

The other option, with no money to operate, would be to shut it down, and nobody would have water.

The United States' GDP is almost 16 trillion dollars (This GDP is why the U.S. can borrow so much money). People should not be cut off from something so life sustaining as water. Humans cannot live after 3 days of not drinking water. Toilets that cannot be flushed breed disease quickly. Not to mention the sickness caused by the lack of showering and/or bathing.

Granted none of these people will die from not having some kind of drinking water. Going to a public restroom and sticking a large plastic carton under a sink will get you drinking water.

The richest and most powerful country in the history of mankind should have no problem providing all of its citizens water. The cost of doing so is only "a drop in the bucket" when it comes to the GDP generated by the U.S.'s citizens.

[Blue90]

That's what you get for living in a third world country

[SabreFan1]

That's what you get for living in a third world country

Not completely accurate.

That's what we get by having a lazy voting populace that elects 3rd rate crooked politicians. If people in this country could get out of the "us vs. them" two party mentality and just vote for the best independent people that their states and districts can offer, then the U.S. would be a much better place.

George Washington warned against the kind of government that the U.S. has now had for decades in his farewell address at the end of his presidency in 1797.

[ronthecivil]

The United States' GDP is almost 16 trillion dollars (This GDP is why the U.S. can borrow so much money). People should not be cut off from something so life sustaining as water. Humans cannot live after 3 days of not drinking water. Toilets that cannot be flushed breed disease quickly. Not to mention the sickness caused by the lack of showering and/or bathing.

Granted none of these people will die from not having some kind of drinking water. Going to a public restroom and sticking a large plastic carton under a sink will get you drinking water.

The richest and most powerful country in the history of mankind should have no problem providing all of its citizens water. The cost of doing so is only "a drop in the bucket" when it comes to the GDP generated by the U.S.'s citizens.

I agree it should be a higher priority that a lot of things the US spends money on. Still, the US really needs to get it's economic picture together. What would be ideal is to have democrats in charge of taxation and the republicans in charge of spending but unfortunately you are getting the oposite, which is why things like this happen.

[John Tortorella]

Its upsetting but some people haven't paid bills in over a year. Our power/cable/cell

[John Tortorella]

Its upsetting but some people haven't paid bills in over a year. Our power/cable/cell will go out (unsure about water)

What are they spending welfare on? If they see that they have bought alcohol but didn't pay water bill do you still feel they are entitled to water? Not trying to say they are but people have horrible priorities.

For example: students in college who have iPhones or new shoes but cant buy books because no money then they blame system.

Water should be free imo for a successful country, but USA prides itself on being capitalism at its finest and every program they try to add people scream socialists!

I imagine many are self inflicted or poor priorities. Water bill should be #1 thing paid. Im sure welfare could cover water.

^ not personally for 'selling' water but if you move to Detroit for work when its booming, you are accepting the capitalistic system.

[Offensive Threat]

That's what we get by having a lazy voting populace that elects 3rd rate crooked politicians. If people in this country could get out of the "us vs. them" two party mentality and just vote for the best independent people that their states and districts can offer, then the U.S. would be a much better place.

Since when has anybody ever in the history of mankind anywhere voted for someone based on their ability to govern.

[Bure to Mogilny]

Venezuela provides humanitarian aid to poor Americans who can't afford heating oil. What's even more pathetic is that the U.S. government complains every year about it. However there's nothing that the U.S. administration can do about it since it is distributed by Venezuela's fuel company Citgo that does business in the U.S.

Bush and Obama complained/complain about the Venezuelan program while at the same time kept, and still keeps cutting fuel aid to the poor.

Here's a 2012 article about it: http://mic.com/articles/3357/hugo-chavez-gives-heating-aid-to-u-s-poor-following-obama-budget-cuts

Here's Citgo's web page that advertises the program http://www.citgoheatingoil.com/about-programoverview.html

Now thousands of United States citizens need humanitarian aid by another foreign country just to have drinking water.

How messed up is that? This country has no shame.

O yeah right i doubt this BS about that dictatore