Detroit

Beating Back Austerity: Lessons From Fighting Irish

December 18, 2014 Justin Weeds, www.detroitwaterbrigade.org Resist! Austerity, Detroit, Human Rights, Water

The Detroit Water Brigade was honored to join the Irish Right2Water Campaign for International Human Rights Day in Dublin on December 10th. We traveled across the country to meet communities actively resisting the Irish government’s plan to privatize and commodify Ireland’s public water supply – a plan that would drive the country into even more bond-financed debt in order to enrich bankers and their European Union technocrat lapdogs. The anti-water charges campaign, however, is winning. Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s ruling Fine Gael party has watched its ratings sink to an 11-year low, and the minor concessions offered by the government to the overwhelmingly-popular campaign have only galvanized more people to take to the streets and awakened a once-apathetic and dormant populace.

Two Detroits, Separate And Unequal

November 18, 2014 Laura Gottesdiener, www.tomdispatch.com Educate! Detroit, Water, wealth inequality

And now, after seven decades of these slow-moving storms, including acts that are almost impossible to see as anything but retribution against the city’s predominantly African American population, Detroit is often viewed from afar as a cautionary tale, a post-industrial dystopia of vacant buildings and dormant factories. The truth, however, is more complicated. On the brink of a new, post-bankruptcy beginning, Detroit is really two cities. One is comprised of wealthy enclaves like Palmer Woods linked to a compact, rapidly redeveloping downtown. The other is made up of the rest of the 139-square-mile urban expanse, populated by longtime residents who have fought for decades to survive in an environment that has become increasingly uninhabitable. In the first Detroit, private security is common and the living is relatively safe. In the second, running water has systematically been cut off from at least 27,000 households this year alone.

Detroit Activists Resist Bankruptcy Plan

November 12, 2014 Detroit Resisting Emergency Management, www.d-rem.org Organize! Detroit, Finance and the Economy, History, Law

Federal Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes’ approval of the Plan of Adjustment is not in the best interests of Detroiters. The plan, submitted by emergency manager Kevyn Orr, supported by Mayor Duggan and Gov. Snyder, protects banks, gives away public resources, and has no method to revitalize the city. We object! “We don’t live in a bankrupt city; we live in a city being attacked by bankrupt officials,” said Rev. Ed Rowe of Central United Methodist Church. From the very beginning this process has been a sham. The city was not bankrupt. Independent analysts demonstrated that the city suffered from a cash flow problem, caused by the cessation of promised state revenue sharing. The systematic withdrawal of state support, cutbacks to public services and schools, and massive layoffs in the public sector, combined with policies encouraging industry to move elsewhere, have created enormous pain for the people of Detroit.

Pay Rent Or Drink Water: Detroit Crisis Escalates

November 5, 2014 Ben Ptashnik, www.truth-out.org Educate! Detroit, Human Rights, United Nations, Water

Despite mass protests, the emergency management water shutoffs in Detroit have resumed, even as UN experts publish a press release calling the water disconnects "contrary to human rights" and activists decry them as "genocide." The corporate-led humanitarian crisis in Detroit is escalating, forcing local activists to appeal for international intervention. "The indignity suffered by people whose water was disconnected is unacceptable" according to Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque, the special United Nations rapporteur on human right to water and sanitation, in a press release October 20. The "unprecedented scale" of water shutoffs is targeting the "most vulnerable and poorest" of the city's population, including tens of thousands of African Americans, said Leilani Farha, UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing.

UN Says Water Is A Human Right In Detroit

October 25, 2014 Emily Badger, www.washingtonpost.com Educate! Detroit, Human Rights, Water

Representatives from the United Nations spent a few days in Detroit earlier this week looking into the spate of utility shutoffs that left thousands of poor households in the city this year without water to bathe and cook by. The two special rapporteurs — one on "the human right to water and sanitation," the other on "adequate housing" — were invited to town not by the city, but by community groups that have been advocating for the poor. And their conclusion reinforces what concerned on-lookers have been saying since this summer: "When people are genuinely unable to pay the bill," the U.N. says, the state is obligated to step up with financial assistance and subsidies. "Not doing so amounts to a human rights violation."

Detroit Canary In The Coalmine When It Comes To Water Rights

October 22, 2014 Maude Barlow, www.rabble.ca Educate! Detroit, Human Rights, Inequality, Water

Today, October 20, two UN experts, Catarina de Albuquerque, the special rapporteur on the human right to drinking water and sanitation and Leilani Farha, the special rapporteur on housing, will visit Detroit Michigan to assess the charges that water cut-offs violate the human right to water and sanitation. This is a very important development in the ongoing struggle for water justice in Detroit and the experts will be welcomed by the civil society movements there. While water cut-offs for non-payment of water bills are nothing new in Detroit, the practice took a serious turn for the worse last March when the emergency manager, appointed to administer the newly “bankrupt” city, announced he would commence with an aggressive plan to cut water services to 3,000 residences a week throughout the summer.

How Public Art Builds Safer, Stronger Neighborhoods

October 20, 2014 Anna Clark, www.freshwatercleveland.com Create! Art, Detroit, Housing

Art that merges with the landscape brings human presence, safety, and physical activity into the city’s spaces. This kind of art triggers more than one sense: it is something you move in, touch, and, in some cases, even eat. In Detroit, a spread-out city of single-family homes that is difficult to traverse and pockmarked by vacancy, these artistic interventions are an uncommonly powerful nexus of community life. They create welcoming traffic, as well as opportunities for neighbors to interact and work together. And rather than being a temporary show, in the style of a traveling exhibition or ephemeral installation, this is art for the long-term. It is for a city with a future.

Our Water, Our Power In Detroit

October 8, 2014 Nene Igietseme, www.storybasedstrategy.org Organize! Detroit, Human Rights, Water

It’s fitting that poetry and music began and ended the Our Power Detroit gathering. Besides the legacy of Motown, it is often only in our creative expressions that we can truly begin to articulate our wildest dreams, hopes, and aspirations. Will’s piece (dedicated to Charity Mahouna Hicks) spoke of his desire to return to unity and to one-ness with each other, our ancestors and our futures. Articulating, sharing, and reiterating these visions is crucial, particularly in Detroit right now. With the city under emergency management, it is not uncommon to hear people speak about their conditions, which mirror the hostility that exists for all poor people, people of color, and communities in the face of global capital and profit-driven enterprise. This hostility is now ever-present and undeniable in Detroit with the city under emergency management.

UN Coming To Detroit To Investigate Human Rights Violations

October 7, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! Detroit, Housing, Human Rights, United Nations, Water

United Nations human rights investigators are coming to Detroit on a fact-finding mission to learn more about the shutting off of water and other likely human rights violations. The Special Rapporteur on Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation; and the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing will listen to witnesses describing the situation in Detroit. International and locally known panelists will hear testimony at this town-hall from Michigan residents regarding water, sanitation, and housing issues offered by victims of this crisis.

Exposed: Tax Evictions Could Displace 20,000

October 1, 2014 Michele Obelholtzer, www.occupy.com Educate! Detroit, Foreclosure, Housing, Human Rights, Law, Water

On Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes made a landmark decision to authorize continued water shutoffs for unpaid water bills, leaving thousands of Detroiters without access to water. At the same time, and less reported on, some 20,000 Detroit residents stand to lose another basic human right — their housing — as the Wayne County Treasurer prepares to carry out mass tax foreclosures across the city. If Detroiters facing foreclosure knew they could buy their home for as little as $500, they’d jump at the chance. But local government does the bare minimum to inform those people who could benefit most. Foreclosure notices don’t even mention the auction, let alone the auction website.

Judge Refuses To Stop Detroit Water Shutoffs

September 30, 2014 Matt Helms, www.freep.com Resist! Detroit, Human Rights, Law, Water

Detroit's bankruptcy judge today said he lacked the authority to issue a restraining order to stop water shutoffs over delinquent bills, saying that there is no constitutional right to water and a moratorium would be a financial hit to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. "Chapter 9 strictly limits the courts' power in a bankruptcy case," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes said as he read a ruling from the bench this morning. While Rhodes' ruling made it clear he understood the scope of the problem of water shutoffs in a city with deep poverty, he said the plaintiffs in the case — advocates including Moratorium Now, the Peoples Water Board and the National Action Network — did not make the case that a six-month moratorium was necessary or within his powers.

Big Players Promote Water Privatization

September 8, 2014 Ellen Dannin, www.truth-out.org Educate! Detroit, Law, Privatization, Water

Americans used to take water for granted, but the water shutoff in Detroit has taught us all-important lessons. We now know that the private sector is willing to be ruthless in denying access to the most basic needs of living beings, and we also know that even those who have the least resources can also have power - if they are organized. Knowing these facts can prepare us all for the current fight over the privatization of water. Here are the basic facts as to the players and the events that are leading us to this water war. On May 21, as the Senate prepared to vote on the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 (WRRDA), Senator Boxer spoke on the critical roles the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) section would play. Said Boxer, We also have a new initiative to assist localities in need of loans for flood control or wastewater and drinking water infrastructure to receive those loans from a new funding mechanism we have named WIFIA, the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. WIFIA will allow localities an opportunity to move forward with water infrastructure projects in the same way that TIFIA works in the transportation sector. Where there is a local source of funding to reimburse the federal government, the federal government can front the funds in order to speed up the process.

Veolia Water Company Slams Into Detroit!

September 5, 2014 Jay Burney, www.climate-connections.org Educate! Detroit, Free Trade Agreements, Privatization, Water

The city of Detroit’s state appointed emergency manager has hired the notorious Veolia North America, the American subsidiary of the equally notorious Veolia Environment, headquartered in Paris. Veolia, one of the leading privatizers of water systems in the world and Veolia North America has colonized American cities, especially those located on the Great Lakes. The Company has been hired to “advise” the city on “how to find cost savings” in the sewer and water department. The city has now opened up bids on privatizing the water and sewer system in Detroit, which has been resisted for years. Wait, it only gets worse. The United States is in the middle of negotiating a trade deal with the European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, aka TTIP, which could undermine communities ability to halt hostile privatizations efforts, hinder attempts to reclaim water systems from EU corporations and make it harder to hold private water companies accountable. Just what Detroiter’s that are already suffering human rights violations and access to water need! We see the future and it is here.

United States Is Not A Democracy: From Wall Street To Detroit

September 2, 2014 Marina A. Sitrin, www.globalresearch.ca Create! Democracy, Detroit, Ferguson, Wall Street

Around the world another democracy has begun to manifest itself, one organized by people. The United States is not a democracy. Occupy Wall Street announced this fact to the world with the 1% and inequality. The protests in Ferguson and Detroit are bringing it to the social and political spheres. Around the world another democracy has begun to manifest itself, one organized by people, from below, in plazas, parks, schools, workplaces and on street corners – a democracy where people are no longer silent and are beginning to take back control of their lives. There are few, if any, real democracies. The United States however, is in many ways, the worst. It is a country that declares itself the most democratic in the world, and acts as the world police based on this assumption, yet there is absolutely no “rule of the people”. This truth is increasingly accepted by most people, even Princeton University published a study in April of this year attesting that not only is the United States not a democracy, but it most resembles an oligarchy. The report states, “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”[1]The Occupy Wall Street Movement in the U.S. and similar movements around the globe, from those in Greece, Brazil, Bosnia and the 15M in Spain all spoke and speak to this issue, whether using the concept of the 99% and 1% or the clear slogan No Nos Representan! (They Don’t Represent Us!).

Petition Of 90,000 Signatures To Be Delivered To Detroit Mayor

August 28, 2014 Tawana Honeycomb Petty, www.facebook.com Resist! Activism, Detroit, Water

A press conference will be held on Thursday, August 28, 2014 at 11:00am in front of the Spirit of Detroit located outside of the CAYMC, where we plan to deliver over 90,000 signatures to Mayor Duggan, and Governor Snyder via Emergency Manager Orr. In an attempt to preserve the moratorium on water shut-offs, a group of Detroit residents and civil rights attorneys filed court documents over the weekend asking a judge to immediately block the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) from terminating water service to any occupied residence, and to require the restoration of service to occupied residences without water. The ACLU of Michigan and NAACP Legal Defense fund are serving as expert consultants in the ongoing litigation. Instead, the moratorium ended on Monday, August 25, 2014 and a hearing linking the shutoffs to the policies of the Emergency Manager and the rulings of the bankruptcy judge will be held at the bankruptcy court on September 2, 2014 at 8:30am. “Without a continued moratorium on water shutoffs, thousands more Detroiters, mostly low income children, seniors, and disabled, will immediately be at risk for shutoff,” says Alice Jennings of Edwards & Jennings, P.C., counsel in the lawsuit, “A comprehensive water affordability plan, a viable bill dispute process, specific polices for landlord- tenant bills and a sustainable mechanism for evaluating the number of families in shutoff status or at risk for shutoff, is necessary prior to lifting the DWSD water shutoff moratorium.”

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