Why We March: DTE Shut Offs

The foundation on which society rests has forever changed.  

In September-October of 2010, it was revealed that DTE Energy -- the largest energy provider in Michigan -- had 80,000 utility customers in Detroit's Wayne County alone without either lights or gas, and winter hadn’t begun yet.

The concept of the worthy poor is being trotted out as corporations identify who we should feel sorry for and who deserves the pains connected with poverty. It's your fault if you selected the wrong husband, the wrong wife, the wrong nationality, the wrong career, the wrong parents, etc.

Summer storms cross the State, knocking out energy services to 1000’s and the nightly news shares the stories of the beleaguered families suffering.  Not one word is written about those who live without utilities night after night because they can’t pay the rising costs. 

We are “trained” to see a difference between the one group and the other. No one should have to live thru winters without heat or lights. No one should face living without water.

 

The Assembly To End Poverty is calling for a March on D.C., June 30^th, 2012 to end poverty, and not the poor.  Get involved…endpoverty2012@gmail.com. You have 333 days left. 


Image capture from Kenny Snod video.

We March Again at DTE

On Thursday, 2/11/10, a team of negotiators from MWRO met with DTE. While DTE has made some concessions, we are continuing to march to eliminate ALL wintertime shut-offs.

Therefore our next Resurrection March will be:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, noon-1 p.m.
DTE Headquarters
Bagley and Third Streets
(Near MGM Grand Casino)

More information about the negotiations will be coming soon! If you have questions, call MI Welfare Rights: (313) 964-0618.

Image features Marian Kramer, Co-Chair of the National Welfare Rights Union. Image courtesy of KennySnod, see his YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20hlyk1NLG0

MWRO Death Watches Continue at DTE

Please watch this MWRO "Resurrection March - Death Watch" protest in front of DTE headquarters with MWRO member, Ann Grimmett.

Over the past couple of months, five Detroiters have died in DTE shut-off related deaths. When low-income people cannot afford to pay their winter electric bills or arrange payment plans with Michigan's largest provider of electricity, terrible things happen!

We cannot continue to allow a company that provides a basic need to earn profits at the expense of human life! We DEMAND that DTE Energy turn on service for everyone, establish a moratorium on shut-offs, and develop affordable service plans for low-income people. For over 10 years, MWRO has attended the funerals of seniors, mothers, babies and other poor people after they died while trying to stay warm in their homes.

Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and low-income residents will continue marching outside of the DTE headquarters every Thursday at 12pm until these demands are met.

Enough is enough!

MWRO protests DTE utility shutoffs!

Once again, another cold winter is upon us and MWRO is actively helping low-income people who have had their electricity, natural gas and/or water shutoff. Winter is an especially serious time as people who cannot pay either freeze to death (literally) or use dangerous alternatives that cause house fires. Every year we're back at this same place trying to turn on utilities for families with small children and low-income seniors with breathing machines.

We spend countless hours on the phone and in meetings with DTE officials and social service agencies who know what the outcome will be when they choose profits over people: thousands of poor families suffering in freezing cold homes or dying from house fires started by old, portable heaters and candles for heat.

To protest these massive shutoffs, MWRO had its first "Resurrection March" today at the corporate headquarters of community foe, DTE Energy.

We've had enough!!

Please join MWRO at the upcoming DTE protests on:
Dec 17th and Dec 24th, 2009
12 noon-1 pm at DTE, 2835 Bagley/Second, downtown Detroit.

Plus, please write to DTE and demand that they stop the utility shutoffs against poor people!

Anthony Early, Jr., CEO
DTE Energy
One Energy Plaza
Detroit, MI 48226

See today's Detroit Free Press coverage at:
DTE protest video
DTE newspaper story

For more info, call MWRO at 313-964-0618

(Photo: MWRO)

Fault Lines: Despair & Revival in Detroit, Part 2

In part two of this series from Al Jazeera's Fault Lines program May 14, 2009, Despair, revival in Detroit Part 2, they take a closer look at what local residents are doing to survive in this devastated economy.

Grace Lee Boggs discusses how Detroit--100 years ago--was a symbol of industrialization. Today, it is a symbol of devastation and deindustrialization. Many of the jobs that UAW workers have fought to maintain are now being sent to Mexico, as in the case of American Axle.

Unlike the auto executives who chose to focus on the bottom line sales of their profitable SUVs and other gas guzzling vehicles, many Detroiters saw the collapse coming.

In one segment, Bobbi Thompson, a piano teacher at Detroit's Central United Methodist Church, discusses how she lost her four children to the foster system for 22 months because she was unable to pay her utilities bills. She also points out how the public schools failed to see changes coming in the auto industry and continued to educate her children and others for "drone work instead of brain work."

Another segment of this video shows Capuchin Soup Kitchen's Earthworks Urban Farm, "the largest network of urban food production in the U.S." It encompasses over 130 sq km (80 sq mi) of vacant lots and provides 100,000 seedings per year, such as eggplants, melons, and peppers.

The video ends with an assessment by MWRO's Maureen Taylor with faith that Detroit will be "hell on wheels" once it pulls out of this! Please share this series with others!

How Dare You DTE!

An Open Letter from Ann Grimmett:

As a native Detroiter and a member of MWRO (a national welfare rights union), I was honored to be included in the hosting of a contingent in town mapping out the strategy for the 2nd US Social Forum to be held here in Detroit in June of 2010.

In route to one of many sessions, I traveled thru Mexican Village near the Ambassador Bridge, and the (under construction) Gateway Project. On the way up W. Vernor, I noticed the building located at W. Vernor and 20th St., the former sight of the Detroit Police Department's 2nd Precinct, under the Detroit-Wayne County Port Authority.

This building, although boarded up, was obviously (in broad daylight), VERY well lit, INSIDE! What struck me was that DTE chooses to shut off the service (even to the point of causing death,) of residents who desperately need it for the maintenance of life saving medical equipment, while this defunct building has electric service running day and night! This is SO diabolical it makes me ill! WE are going to have to hold these soulless, wicked, inhuman, corporate devils accountable, NOW!!

Image from MWRO: Lights are on at the boarded up former Detroit Police Dept 2nd Precinct, closed for more than a year!