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Latest News
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04.22.04 |
Director of Detroit Water and
Sewerage Department Victor Mercado and Board of Water
Commissioners served with a Complaint for Administrative
Relief requesting a new "water affordability program" for
low-income and elderly customers.
Read more... |
| 03.16.04 |
The Highland Park Human
Rights Coalition has sent a water proposal to HP
Financial Manager Ramona Henderson Pearson recommending a
flat rate water bill.
Read
more... |
Background
Over the past several years, Detroit utility providers have
cut off heat, water, and electricity to tens of
thousands of city residents. A health and safety hazard
and an affront to basic human rights, the "cost
recovery" campaign waged by the Detroit Water Department has
forced whole families to look somewhere other than the tap for
their basic water needs. In
areas like Highland Park, the situation is a fiasco: residents
are charged thousands of dollars in monthly water bills due to
crumbling infrastructure, corruption, and bad accounting.
Meanwhile, city officials are using the desperate conditions
to justify a gradual shift toward privatization of the water
utility.
In December 2003,
a coalition led by the
Michigan Welfare Rights Organization,
Highland Park Human Rights Coalition, Detroit Green
Party, and Sweetwater Alliance Detroit,
forced
energy provider Detroit Edison (DTE) to abandon its more
aggressive measures against residents. But the severity of the
water problem continues to escalate, particularly in Highland
Park.
Taking the struggle from the streets of Detroit to the capitol
steps in Lansing,
the coalition has mobilized thousands of supporters to demand
legislation recognizing water as a human right. A an essential element
of the coalition, Sweetwater
continues to settle for nothing less than the complete
cessation of all shut-offs of public utilities.
More Background
"Detroit
goes dry" by Marie Mason and Priscilla Dziubek, SWA Detroit
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