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4

Thursday, May 7, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

FROM THE DAILY

Too little too late

Impending shut-offs highlight inadequacies in aid programs
O

n Monday, during a Detroit City Council meeting, offi-
cials and activists convened to form a workgroup to
evaluate the effectiveness of the city’s current water

bill assistance programs, and to begin proposing an affordability
program. These assistance programs arose in response to an out-
pouring of public outrage and critique after the city implemented
extensive water shut-offs throughout its residential areas last
year. These programs were created to alleviate the financial bur-
den of unpaid water bills and prevent future infringements upon
residents’ basic human rights. However, concerns about contin-
ually delinquent accounts and another set of impending water
shut-offs set for later in the month demonstrate that Detroit’s
efforts to remedy the situation — while well-intentioned — are
precariously delayed.

Initiated by an announce-

ment from the Detroit Water
and Sewerage Department in
March 2014, 46,000 shut-off
notices were issued to resi-
dents with delinquent water
payments and water service
ceased for roughly 4,531 cus-
tomers in May of last year.
A similar scenario of water
shut-offs is expected to occur
later this month. Even with
the creation of these assis-
tance programs last year,
20,000
to
25,000
house-

holds in Detroit have been
declared delinquent on their
water bills, which means
their payments are at least
60 days overdue or residents
are in debt by $150 or more.
Residents are then given a
mere 10 days to respond by
seeking assistance or mak-
ing a payment before losing

service. The re-emergence
of shut-offs and of citizens’
continued inability to afford
their water bills highlights
the city’s failure to find a way
to address this long-standing
problem in a timely manner.
Concerns about this year’s
delinquent accounts should
have
been
addressed
far

sooner than just a few weeks,
or even a few months, before


the shut-offs.

Yet, measures from existing

assistance programs — as sug-
gested by Detroit’s Chief Oper-
ations Officer Gary Brown
— seek to ensure financially
struggling
residents
won’t

have their water shut off sim-
ply because they are unable to
pay. Financially strained cus-
tomers can avoid losing service
and begin decreasing their
debt by enrolling in a payment

plan. Since last year’s shut-
offs, assistance programs have
provided some aid to residents
beneath the poverty line who
are struggling to pay. Accord-
ing to DWSD Deputy Director
Darryl Latimer, approximately
31,000 citizens are enrolled
in payment plans, touting an
increase of 11,700 individuals
since last year. The current
program, which underwent
revisions
in
April,
assists

financially burdened custom-
ers by paying 50 percent of
overdue charges and covers 25
percent of future bills. A more
comprehensive assistance pro-
gram is expected to be enacted
in July.

However, due to the fact

that 30 percent of more than
1,800 individuals who were
enrolled
since
September

were incapable of maintain-

D

emonstrations and protests
ensued in Baltimore as a result
of the death of Freddie Gray

due
to
alleged

police
brutality.

Gray, a 25-year-old
African American
man,
suffered
a

spinal cord injury
while
in
police

custody on April
12, and died as a
result of the injury
seven days later.
Although
much

is still unknown
about the incidents that caused the
injury, Baltimore Police Commissioner
Anthony W. Batts revealed that the
“police employees failed to get him
medical attention in a timely man-
ner.” He also commented “We know
he was not buckled in the transporta-
tion wagon as he should have been. No
excuses for that. Period.”

On Tuesday April 28, Mayor Stepha-

nie Rawlings-Blake enacted a city-wide
curfew, and Governor Larry Hogan
declared a state of emergency, deploy-
ing the National Guard. Johns Hop-
kins University went through several
precautions due to safety concerns and
encouraged its students to stay in their
dorms by closing some of the school.

Curious as to how members of

Hopkins were affected by these inci-
dents, I interviewed Kidist Ketema,
an African American senior at Johns
Hopkins University studying pub-
lic health and economics, and Sharif
Braxton, an African American Johns
Hopkins alumni and an employee at
the John Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health.

In the midst of peaceful demonstra-

tion, some individuals in Baltimore
began rioting, burning cars and, as
headlined in the media, looting a CVS
drugstore. News sources circulated

the words “Baltimore Burning” and
“Baltimore Erupts,” disregarding the
many peaceful protesters and the rea-
soning behind their frustrations. This
created a skewed idea of the real issues
the majority of the protesters were
coming together for—a stand against
police brutality across America.

Both Ketema and Braxton stressed

that the demonstrations that they
attended were mostly peaceful, con-
trary to the media portrayal.

Braxton attended some of the pro-

tests and commenting on the demon-
stration on Tuesday, he stated, “There
was a very peaceful protesting and in
terms of trying to preach the impor-
tance of community and the impor-
tance of togetherness and everything
in between that were there. It was
about being concerned for black
rights, but human rights as well,
which you haven’t seen that as much
in the media. Especially since the peo-
ple who were doing the looting and
the rioting weren’t really concerned
with the initiative as a whole.”

Social media created a direct source

to highlight some of these incon-
sistencies and gradually, the public
began criticizing the media for not
paying attention to the protests before
the riots began and their general cov-
erage of the events. Ketema said she
found social media “helpful (in kind
of) breaking down the situation and
understanding what’s actually going
on.” Social media has been a way to
bring awareness and support of other
movements, such as the protesting in
Ferguson allowing for a national con-
versation. Both the protestors and the
police department attempted to rally
support on Twitter, in realization
of the importance of social media in
swaying public opinion.

Ketema explained how when she

opened her Yik Yak on Monday, what
she found were racist comments from

Never again

RABAB
JAFRI

ing their payments and dropped out
of the program, a more sustainable
method of assisting Detroit’s low-
income populations needs to be imple-
mented. As discussed by the work
group committee Monday, efforts
to address the delinquent water
accounts must shift in focus to the
systematic issues surrounding overall
water affordability rather than solely


providing assistance.

Avoiding discussing affordability

will only allow the issue to stagnate,
and will worsen some of Detroit’s
other existing problems. Water pric-
es in Detroit have continued to rise
with an 8.7-percent increase last
year and an expected increase of

3.4-percent this coming July, aggra-
vating the current situation. Many
delinquent accounts are expected to
belong to vacant residences once the
shut-offs commence later this month.
However, rising water prices — in
combination with residents’ strained
economic situations — may lead to
an increase in abandoned proper-
ties as residents negotiate between
expenses and choose to vacate prop-
erties with no water. While the city’s
response has been delayed so far, it
must act promptly from this point
to address the issue of affordabil-
ity and make necessary changes in
order to prevent the exacerbation of


this problem.