Stop Detroit Tax Foreclosures -- Sign Petitions Today

MWRO is working with local organizations to defend the right to housing and stop the nearly 75,000 tax-foreclosures scheduled to happen this year in Wayne County, Michigan, where Detroit is located.

Please help us get out information to people at risk of home tax-foreclosure due to incorrect tax bills with exaggerated property assessments and disputed water bill liens. Here's how you can help:

(1) Sign and share the online petition to the Wayne County Treasurer against the tax-foreclosures at http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50109/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=15875

(2) Call MWRO at 313-964-0618 if you are in the Detroit area and want us to mail (or email) a hard copy of the petition form to you to collect signatures from families and friends.

(3) Share information about free tax clinics in March for person in need of information on their housing rights and payment plan opportunities BEFORE meeting with Wayne County tax officials. The tax foreclosure clinics are coordinated by community attorneys at United Community Housing Coalition and the Detroit People's Platform. See flyers below.

We will update this information as it becomes available. For more information, contact MWRO at info@mwro.org or Aaron at the Detroit People's Platform at HomesForAll@DetroitPeoplesPlatform.org

International Network ESCR files legal brief in support of Detroit residents against water shutoffs

For immediate release

International human rights network intervenes in case challenging large-scale disconnection of water supply to tens of thousands of low-income residents in Detroit

New York. February 9, 2015. The International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), a global network of over 220 groups and 50 individual advocates from around the world working to secure economic and social justice through human rights, has requested leave from the U.S. District Court to be recognized as amicus curiae[1] in the case of Lyda et al. v. City of Detroit[2]in support of residents challenging the City of Detroit’s decision to cut off water supply to thousands of households unable to pay their bills.

As detailed in the plaintiffs’ complaint, by the end of August 2014 the City of Detroit had disconnected approximately 30,000 households of low-income persons and persons living in poverty from the municipal water supply and sewerage service, leaving them without access to drinking water and water for toilets and basic sanitation.

ESCR-Net, through its amicus brief, seeks to bolster the plaintiffs’ legal challenge by highlighting that the disconnections for inability to pay violate a range of legal obligations applicable to the U.S. under key international human rights treaties.

At the same time, ESCR-Net contends that Detroit’s City Charter, which includes a Declaration of Rights recognizing rights to water, sanitation and decent housing, must be respected. Pursuant to long-established principles of both U.S. law and international law, relevant domestic law must be interpreted consistently with treaty obligations. 

Chris Grove, Executive Director of ESCR-Net, said, “Access to justice is required for violations of human rights, and we welcome the opportunity to assist the U.S. District Court with material relevant to consideration of the issues at stake. These issues impact the health, security and human dignity of thousands of Detroit residents and implicate our vision of a just society.”

“A number of human rights are arguably violated by these disconnections, including rights to water, sanitation, adequate housing, health, life, freedom from cruel and inhuman treatment, and non-discrimination. The international human rights obligations of the U.S. also apply to the City of Detroit, and these obligations require that denial of access to water be reversed immediately,” he added.

The City of Detroit’s water disconnection policy has shocked the international community and has prompted, among other reactions, the visit of two United Nations Special Procedures human rights experts to assess the situation in October 2014.[3] Despite the onset of winter, local groups report that the City has continued water shut-offs at the homes of low-income families, the elderly, and the infirmed.

It is hoped that the application of international human rights law will help the plaintiffs achieve a just and effective remedy, including renewed access to water and an end to any further disconnections.

A copy of the amicus curiae brief is available at http://bit.ly/1ESJLdW

About ESCR-Net

ESCR-Net is the largest global network of human rights organizations, grassroots groups and advocates working to build a global movement to make human rights and social justice a reality for all. Please visit http://www.escr-net.org

This action is being led by ESCR-Net Strategic Litigation Working Group members Center for the Study of Law, Justice and Society (Dejusticia), the Global Initiative on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), the Social Rights Advocacy Centre (SRAC), and the Social Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI).

For information regarding this amicus intervention, contact:

• Susie Talbot. Senior Legal Officer (ESCR-Net) stalbot@escr-net.org

• Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director (GI-ESCR) bret@globalinitiative-escr.org. (Tel. +1-218-269-0214)

For information on the situation in Detroit or to speak with residents, contact:

Michigan Welfare Rights Organization http://michiganwro.blogspot.com

Marian Kramer, Maureen Taylor or Sylvia Orduño +1-313-964-0618

---

[1] An amicus curiae (or ‘friend of the Court’) is a person or organization who, although not a party to a case, is granted leave to submit material to the Court relevant to the disposition of the case and not already brought to the Court’s attention by the parties.

[2]Lyda et al. v. City of Detroit, Case No. 2:15-cv-10038-BAF-RSW, before Hon. Bernard A. Friedman in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division.

[3]See: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15188&LangID=E. 

Canadians Deliver Water to Thirsty Detroit Residents

Michigan Welfare Rights Organization welcomes allies and friends from the Council of Canadians and cities across Ontario, Canada as they deliver dozens of gallons of fresh water to Detroit residents whose water has been shutoff. 

Please join us at 3:30pm as we gather to welcome a Canadian caravan of vehicles when they cross the border at 4pm! We'll greet them at the Spirit of Detroit statue in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Ave (at Jefferson) in downtown Detroit. Following the welcome rally, the caravan and local residents will deliver the water to a People's Water Board water station at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 1950 Michigan Ave (at Trumbull Ave) in Detroit -- only a few short minutes away. For more information see: Canadian Convoy to Detroit on facebook.

Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians; and Maureen Taylor, MWRO State Chair are among the featured speakers. Please spread the word!

Below reposted from Detroit Greens

Welcome the Canadian Water Convoy to Detroit

Wed, 07/23/2014 - 09:24 — Lou

Welcome Netroots Nation to Detroit!

Michigan Welfare Rights Organization welcomes Netroots Nation to Detroit, July 17-20, 2014. 

Thousands of "bloggers, newsmakers, social justice advocates, labor and organizational leaders, grassroots organizers and online activists" are converging this week in the Motown City to connect and report on the issues most important to Detroiters and citizens of the world!

At Cobo Center in Downtown Detroit.

Detroit activists like us are excited to share many of the pressing issues we're working on to advance the people's right to water, housing, food, education, living wages and more! Find out more about the Detroit water shut-off crisis here and through our partner the People's Water Board.

Stay posted as we post more information here in coming hours and days!

In Solidarity,

MWRO Union Members

Stories we encourage you to read and share about Detroit grassroots issues:

• Welcome the Canadian Water Convoy to Detroit on July 24, 2014 on People's Water Board facebook page, 7/16/14.
• A year into Detroit's bankruptcy, many residents still feel abandoned in L.A. Times, 7/16/14.
• Detroit Water Shut-offs Declared ‘Major Health Disaster' by RNs in National Nurse United, 7/15/14.
• U.S. Bankruptcy Court, In re: City of Detroit, Debtor Objection to “Plan of Adjustment”:
  Testimony by Kristen A. Hamel, Detroit resident and homeowner at Moratorium Now!, 7/15/14.
• Detroit must do what is right - turn the water back on (guest column) in Detroit Free Press, 7/14/14.
• No Water For Motown: Why Detroit Is Denying Its Citizens This Basic Human Right
  in The Nation, 7/11/14.
• 'Escalating Resistance' in Detroit as Residents Block Water Shut-Offs' in Common Dreams, 7/10/14.
• Going Without Water in Detroit in New York Times, 7/3/14.
• Water is a Human Right: Detroit Residents Seek U.N. Intervention as City Shuts Off Taps to Thousands on Democracy Now, 6/24/14.
   

Online Petitions:

• Sign the petition: Declare a public health emergency in Detroit -- Target: President Obama and Health Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, 7/16/14.
• Tell Detroit to Turn the Taps Back On: Water Is A Human Right! -- Target: The White House, 7/12/14.
• Provide disaster relief to the thousands of Detroit residents without clean drinking water due to city water shutoffs -- Target: Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Detroit Emergency Manager Kevin Orr, 7/11/14. 

MWRO Water Affordability Program

(not to be confused with the DRWAP promoted now by DWSD)

• Outline of the MWRO Water Affordability Program -- this is based on the original 2005 proposal from water specialist Roger Colton.

Stop the Shutoffs, Turn on the Water! Rally and March

There's much going on in Detroit these days as MWRO with members of the People's Water Board and Food and Water Watch work to protect the human right to water. In the latest news, Detroit Water and Sewerage Dept. executives were told today by the federal bankruptcy court judge to come up with a better plan to help people whose water is being turned off.

To read more about this and recent stories, check out the links below.

We'll be at this Friday's, Stop the shutoffs, Turn on the water! rally and march at Cobo Center during Netroots Nation, led by allies from National Nurses United and the Robin Hood Tax. Join us there!!

• Judge Rhodes: Water shutoffs hurt Detroit's reputation internationally, on freep.com, July 15, 2014.
• Low-wage Detroit Citizens Fight for Basic Necessities of Life in the Face of Corporate Onslaught, in LaborRadio.org, July 14, 2014.

• “Shame on you”: Maureen Taylor rips WDIV reporter, in Michigan Citizen, July 8, 2014.

• Water Crisis in Detroit: Putting Corporate Profit Ahead of Human Rights, in Blue Planet Project, June 26, 2014.

• Water is a Human Right: Detroit Residents Seek U.N. Intervention as City Shuts Off Taps to Thousands, on DemocracyNow.org, June24, 2014.

Water Warrior Maude Barlow to visit Detroit Thursday, May 22

(Reposted from Detroit Greens)

Michigan Welfare Rights Organization members will be there and we know you will be too! Tonight at 6:30pm, Wayne State University, downtown Detroit. This event is co-sponsored by the Detroit People's Water Board -- a coalition of grassroots organizations committed to demanding affordable water, no shut-offs, no privatization and affordable rates for all Detroit Water and Sewerage Dept.residential customers

People's Water Board Created In Detroit

By Gwendolyn Gaines and Sylvia Orduño, MWRO

We’re pleased to announce that the first meeting of the People’s Water Board in Detroit was a big success! Representatives from several organizations, including the Green Party, Sierra Club, Call ‘em Out, Moratorium Now, Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, AFSCME Local 207, MECAWI, and MWRO, laid the groundwork for this coalition of water activists.

All participants were concerned about the need for clean, accessible water, plus shut-offs, privatization, and the Water Affordability Plan. The People’s Water Board is taking the first steps to ensure that local water remains in public hands, investigate who and where the threats are to this, and will act as an advocate for the people.

The People’s Water Board identified several short- and long-term goals such as ensuring access to water for all people (including getting the Water Affordability Plan on the November 2009 Detroit ballot); protecting water quality and water conservation; and opposing privatization of water resources.

The next People’s Water Board will meet May 26, 2009 at 6pm at MCHT (2727 Second Ave, Detroit, MI). Meanwhile, nominations are underway for Commissioners. For more information, contact Melissa Damaschke at the Sierra Club (313) 965-0055, melissa.damaschke@sierraclub.org

(Image courtesy of Michigan Sierra Club)

Join the People's Water Board

The Michigan Sierra Club is convening a Detroit-based coalition to form a People's Water Board. The People's Water Board Mission is:

Water is life. The People's Water Board advocates for access, protection, and conservation of water. We believe water is a human right and all people should have access to clean and affordable water. Water is a commons that should be held in the public trust free of privatization. The People's Water Board promotes awareness of the interconnectedness of all people and resources.

Join Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and many other grassroots groups as we fight against water shut-offs and protect the human right to water!

People's Water Board - Planning Meeting:
Saturday, April 18 from 10am to 1:30pm (refreshments provided) at Metropolitan Center for Technology Room 101A (2727 Second Avenue; Detroit). Free and secure parking is available behind the building; enter through the back door.

As we continue to see water rates increase, water shutoffs in homes, and pollution impacting our drinking water, we believe it is time for us to collectively organize for change and we need your help! Questions? please call 313-965-0055.

William Copeland's "Water Warriors" Poetry

Check out Will Copeland's cool, new spoken word video, Water Warriors!

Will is a Detroit-born poet, activist, and youth organizer. In this video, he rhymes all about the water shut-offs in Detroit, water privatization efforts, the human right to water, and poor people's struggles in the city. Yeahhh!!

Video courtesy of Isabelle Carbonell, documentary photographer and filmmaker at Izaca Productions.

World Water Day: Protect Your Right to Water

March 22nd is World Water Day, a day set aside to celebrate and protect one of life's most precious gifts. But is has also become a day when people around the world are forced to defend and demand their right to water!

World Water Day also coincides with the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. At the Forum, hundreds of United Nations representatives, policy-makers, and business leaders come together to discuss world water solutions but mostly with the intent of driving profits on water. It has also excluded the concerns and input of grassroots groups and world citizens. Hence, water activists hold a Counter World Water Forum to promote water rights and local decision-making around water needs.

Fresh water has become like oil: a once abundant resource that is commodified, taken from the people, and sold to the highest bidder. But critical differences exist. No one owns water, it belongs to everyone. Like air, it is necessary for life and without it, people die.

This possibility is no longer fiction. Countries around the world are allowing their fresh water supplies in rivers, lakes, aquifers, and even rainwater to be tapped, bottled, sold, and distributed by companies seeking easy profits. As a result, children are dying, people are ill, and communities are collapsing. Water belongs to no government, no company, and no international cartel. It belongs to the earth, it belongs to the people.

No one has the right to deny people of their right to life-sustaining water because of their inability to pay. Moreover, companies and governments have no right to enter into agreements that sacrifice clean water access at the expense of local community needs. In Chile, for example, companies are draining more water than they are permitted and entire cities, villages and farms are being decimated.

Food & Water Watch has launched a petition campaign to ask Congress to protect out water and water infrastructure with a Water Trust. Join in and find out what your local officials are doing to safeguard your municipal water system. The solutions to water access and sanitation will not come from big business or free-market governments. Don't be duped! The solutions rests with local communities leading the effort to determine their needs and rights so that everyone can benefit from this life-giving natural resource.

(Image courtesy of U.N. World Water Day)

Speakers for a New America

Streaming online tonight...
Speakers for a New America

Speakers from America's Rust Belt discuss the crisis in auto, the bailout, poverty and solutions.


Claire McClinton will be on KPFK Beautiful Struggle, at 7pm (PST), Tuesday, March 3, 2009 discussing the crisis in auto. Claire McClinton is an auto-worker from Flint, Michigan, a labor leader and community activist. She discusses the bailout and the crisis in auto. You can listen to the program live at or download the program from the KPFK archives after it airs.

"Ask Welfare Rights," with Maureen Taylor and Marian Kramer of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, will be on WHPR TV and radio from Detroit, MI tonight from 7-8:00 PM (EST). The lively weekly discussions deal with the growing poverty, the struggle for water for Detroit residents, politics, solutions and more.You can view the program on your computer each week.

See Speakers for a New America for a list of national leaders and activists who can speak to your group or community about grassroots solutions to U.S. problems and more.

“Capitalism vs Democracy”

‘Cipients Speak! December 2008
by Maureen D. Taylor, MWRO State Chair

As we come to the end of the year, MWRO sends out greetings to our members across the state and to the welfare rights members across the country, the front-line fighters. Don’t get weary now! The American worker is looking at this collapse of an economy that we have all grown up under, and many questions abound.

Most of our lives, we have equated capitalism with democracy. People have the right to make money at the expense of someone else. Lights, gas, water – all natural resources have been privatized as corporations make millions at the hands of our suffering, and we are taught that this is the “American way.”

Retirees put their trust in these same corporations, and allowed these snakes to invest their pensions in stock market ventures, and now that their precious dollars are gone, the message is, “too bad!” We have seniors living well below the poverty level, juggling decisions to pay bills or pay for prescriptions, and we are okay with that?

Veterans who served honorably are living in homeless shelters, and we are okay with that? Southern congressional officials are demanding that northern workers accept the no-benefit salaries paid to non-union workers, and we are okay with that?

Capitalism doesn’t mean democracy, it equals terrorism.

The door is open to start rebuilding the country based on a new standard of living. Welfare Rights supports a guaranteed annual income for those unable to secure employment that maintains a level of existence well above poverty. If we can spend $10B per month over eight years for wars, we can keep people fed, clothed, and out of harms way.

The technology exists today to feed folk, to build cars that run on vegetable oil, to build affordable homes, to provide healthcare, and to make America closer to the dream that it was built on. We have to construct a new point of view that emphasizes that the needs of the many are more important than the needs of the few. Thank you, Mr. Spock! Happy Holidays to All!

Detroit's Water Czar

While Congress and the White House toss around the fate of thousands of auto workers, and discuss the creation of a "Car Czar," we thought we'd mention another local czar in the news, Judge John Feikens.

Thirty-seven years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued the Detroit Sewerage and Water Dept (DWSD) and the city to stop polluting the Detroit River. Judge Feikens was charged with overseeing local efforts--as the de facto water czar--and requiring local governments to respond to the lawsuit. Snow, rain, and widespread development created massive storm drain run-offs that contributed to water contamination in rivers and the area's watershed.

Many local groups have applauded Judge Feikens' heavy-handed efforts to comply with this Clean Water Act ruling, and there are noticeable improvements in the areas rivers, lakes, and beaches. In fact, his Detroit efforts have caused some to believe that this could be a national model for other cities.

But during this time, residents of two local water depts--the DWSD and Highland Park Water Dept--had another set of crises that the water czar did not include in his regional remedy plan. Since 2002 in Detroit, thousands of low-income residents had their water shut-off for lack of payment. In Highland Park, nearly half of the city's 16,000 residents had their water shut-off by cash-strapped local officials.

For several years, MWRO has worked in concert with local residents and grassroots leaders to have the water departments address this wide-scale public health and human rights problem. On several occasions, Judge Feikens' name came up by local water and city council officials as we pressed for relief or a moratorium on shut-offs.

Waterless residents were told that before any public policy changes could be made to help vulnerable populations restore their water service or establish affordable payments options, the water czar would first require payment and compliance with his legal orders by the water depts. In Highland Park, this made matters worse. Residents were receiving bills in the thousands of dollars (see film, The Water Front), and the city was nearly under receivership by the Governor because it could not pay its own bills.

For the past six years, MWRO members and local residents have sought a Water Affordability Program that would prevent shut-offs and allow low-income households to make modest monthly payments. We reached out to Judge Feikens for assistance and guidance and not once did we receive a response. If the Detroit water czar is truly interested in improving the area's quality of life through clean water then, we believe, part of that entails ensuring that the poorest members of the community are included and safeguarded against the harm of water shut-offs.

Lastly, a local study found that the cost of modernizing the Detroit region's sewage treatment plants and system pipes could be over $50 billion in the next 25 years. This could also double the cost of water bills within 15 years, which are already rising twice as fast as inflation. Low-income residents cannot manage this increase. What will the water czar do to avert this crisis?

Aging Water Infrastructure Results in Water Shut-offs

(Reposted from Great Lakes Town Hall)

By Melissa Damaschke, Sierra Club (Detroit, MI); and
Maureen Taylor, MWRO (Detroit, MI)

The Great Lakes currently provide drinking water to over 42 million people. Yet not everyone in the region can afford this vital resource. Upgrading aging water and sewage infrastructure is placing an unaffordable cost on residents, resulting in water being turned off in thousands of homes in Detroit.

In addition, this aging infrastructure is causing pollution to our Great Lakes. According to the Sierra Legal Defense Fund’s “2006 Great Lakes Sewage Report Card,” cities dumped over 23 billion gallons of raw sewage into the Great Lakes in 2006.

The Detroit Wastewater Treatment Facility is the largest discharger in the Great Lakes basin, processing between 700 million and 1 billion gallons of municipal and industrial wastewater each day. Heavy rainfall events or melting snow often overload the system, causing sewage overflows. The city reported over 200 sewage overflows in 2005, earning it the lowest grade of “D” on the Sierra Legal Defense Fund’s Report Card.

A combined sewage overflow happens during and after wet weather events, when rainwater or melting snow overloads many combined sewer systems. In such instances, large volumes of untreated domestic sewage and industrial wastewater flow directly into local water bodies.

Pollution from combined sewage overflows causes considerable damage, including drinking water contamination, beach closings, algal blooms, basement backups, waterborne illness, closed fishing grounds, loss of tourism, and depressed property values.

The high cost of upgrading and expanding the aging sewage system, among other things, forced the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to raise its water rates numerous times in recent years. Water—a basic human right—became unaffordable to many residents, thousands of whom had their water shut off because of a failure to pay their bills.

The City of Detroit has now adopted the Water Affordability Plan, which when implemented will help protect low income residents from water shutoffs.

This story highlights the connection between sewage infrastructure and drinking water and the critical importance of maintaining both systems and keeping these basic services affordable and available in all Great Lakes cities.

Throughout the week, you will hear more about Detroit’s aging infrastructure and personal stories of people who have had their water shut off in a state that is surrounded by water.

See Great Lakes Town Hall for more stories and to post your thoughts.

(BTW, today is the birthday of Maureen Taylor, MWRO State Chairperson--Happy Birthday!)

Liquid Assets Documentary on Water Infrastructure

Liquid Assets is another anticipated documentary on the nation's water crisis. But this time it's not about the water shut-off and affordability problems that we're familiar with. Instead, this film reports on the decaying infrastructure of water systems in the U.S.

Michiganders know all too well about broken water and sewer lines in their neighborhoods, and along busy streets and highways. Every winter, residents witness frozen household and street pipes reach their limit and burst from years of usage, erosion, and damage. While homeowners are responsible for fixing pipes on and near their property lines, there is a vast network of underground pipes that belong to the general public. There are, however, too few resources and even fewer large-scale plans to address this impending crisis.

Liquid Assets investigates this problem and interviews a variety of political leaders, industry officials, and community activists. Their responses tell of the need for what could be the nation's single largest public works project in history. Learn more by viewing the Liquid Assets trailer, and reading the website's Synopsis and Themes.

MWRO Utility Summit Success!

Last Thursday and Friday, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization held its 5th Annual Utility Summit at Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD, Downtown Detroit campus). Attendance by the community, supporting organizations and businesses was beyond expectations! On the first day, over 700 people arrived for help with utility bills; nearly 1000 people attended the next day.
Every Fall and Winter in Detroit, thousands of families face shut-offs in electricity, natural gas, and water to heat their homes. MWRO has been leading the fight to protect families and seniors from shut-offs by coordinating efforts with agencies that provide utility bill assistance, and working with utility companies to proactively address cold weather concerns.

At this year's MWRO Utility Summit, over a dozen DTE Energy staff came out to help customers enroll in low-income billing plans. Among them was Jerry Norcia, President and COO of Michigan Consolidated (MichCon) Gas, a subsidiary of DTE. This show of support for the community is a remarkable turn-around from six years ago when MWRO led pickets in front of DTE for its inhumane utility shut-offs against Michigan's poor.


Maureen Taylor, State Chair of MWRO, reported that among other remarkable news at the event was: (1) a report by the Wayne County Treasurers Dept. that it would no longer process foreclosures on homes due to water bills. These cases will be referred back to the City of Detroit for resolution with the homeowner. Another people's victory!, and (2) The City of Detroit Dept of Human Services will provide up to $3000 toward water, electricity, and natural gas utility bills for families in need.

Many other agencies and organizations also came out to help families protect themselves against Winter shut-offs offering information and resources. They include: Detroit Water and Sewerage Dept, Wayne County Treasurer's Office, City of Detroit Dept of Human Services, Michigan Dept of Human Services, The Heat and Warmth Fund (THAW), WCCCD, Detroit Urban League, Goodwill Foundation, Crossroads, WARM, the Michigan Veterans Foundation, United Community Housing Coalition, MI Legal Services, United Way, Angel Food Ministries, Perfecting Church, Community Energy Solutions Program, Wayne Metro-Community Action Group, Moratorium Now! Coalition, and more! Special thanks are also due to Wayne Co. Community College District for the Subway sandwich lunch meals and bags they provided to low-income voters.

At this year's Utility Summit, nearly 2000 families were helped and, hopefully, spared tragic scenarios from freezing temperatures; and heating from candles, open ovens, and dangerous space heaters. Anyone who needs utility help can call MWRO at (312) 964-0618.

Images: First, community members listen to utility resource presentations, photo by Victor Arbulu; second, community residents wait to speak with DTE Energy representatives, photo by Ann Rall.

Tragic Poverty Fires in Highland Park...and the MWRO Utility Summit

The nights have started getting colder in southeast Michigan and low income families are struggling to keep warm. With the socioeconomic crises in Detroit and surrounding areas--no jobs, layoffs, home foreclosures, wide-scale poverty, very low food security, illness--many poor and fixed income households often have to decide between which bills to pay.

Low income families living in large, old, poorly insulated homes in Detroit and Highland Park more often than not are unable to pay altogether for electricity, natural gas, and water. So they make small payments hoping that it will suffice but it doesn't.

Early this morning, another family in Highland Park became victim to poverty fires--dying in one's home because you can't afford to pay for the utility(ies) you need to properly heat it. A beloved grandmother and her three young grandchildren (5, 8, and 10) burned in their home while the children's mother and other relatives luckily managed to escape. According to the Detroit Free Press, the fire department confirmed what neighbors already knew: the fire started from a small space heater used to keep the children warm while they slept.

Yesterday, a neighbor shared information with the grandmother about getting help with her heat bill through THAW, an agency that assists low income families with high bills and getting utilities turned back on. THAW is largely funded through redirected funds from DTE--the Detroit-based utility company that shut-off the family's natural gas in the first place!

Corporations should not be making profits off of the utilities needed for supporting life. We all have the right to shelter, heat, food, water, clothing, and other human rights...and no corporate bottom line should determine who stays warm or who dies. This tragedy, along with neighboring burned homes, never had to happen if low-income families had better assistance, better resources, better information about how to protect their families!

Michigan Welfare Rights Organization is organizing its annual Utility Summit to help families and individuals learn how to avoid utility shut-offs and get assistance. Please encourage your family, friends, and neighbors to attend as we try to put an end to the horror of poverty fires!

MWRO UTILITY CRISIS SUMMIT
Wayne County Community College, Downtown Campus
1001 W. Fort St, Detroit, MI 48226
5:00-7:30pm
Thursday, Oct. 23 for surnames beginning A-L
Friday, Oct. 24 for surnames beginning M-Z

Learn how to avoid utility shut-offs and home foreclosures!
Bring your bills...Show your voter registration card and get a free meal!
Register at (313) 258-6826

Nestle Theatens Florida Water Dept For Praising Tap Water As Better Than Bottled Water

Following legal threats from Nestle, the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department in Florida has pulled radio ads off the air that asserted the quality of its tap water as being better than bottled water. Reported by the Miami Herald, Nestle threatened legal action because the ad declared 'Miami-Dade's tap water as cheaper, purer and safer than bottled water.' A Nestle spokesperson responded that, ``It's an attack on the product we produce -- and it's blatantly wrong.'' An attack on a product they produce?

Food & Water Watch has blasted this claim and so should we! ''Nestle should be ashamed for harassing Miami for promoting its own water,'' said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Washington-based Food & Water Watch. ``This is just outrageous. It's just a way to scare off other utilities." Interestingly, these legal threats also seem to follow declining sales in the $11.7 billion bottled water industry.

Michigan residents have their own horror stories about the effect of Nestle's water depleting practices across the state. In Mecosta County, local residents and environmentalists sued Nestle (who bottles Ice Mountain water locally) for depleting and damaging aquifers and watersheds. In Detroit, private groups have long-sought to control one of the oldest and largest municipal water departments near the vast Great Lakes.

Read more about the Take Back the Tap Campaign from Food & Water Watch, and Take the Pledge to Take Back the Tap to promote and preserve public water! And see The Water Front film trailer for a snapshot of one Michigan community's effort to preserve its local water department and protect its residents against high costs and shutoffs.

MWRO Re-launches Fight for Water Affordability Plan

From the Sep-Oct 2008 issue of Critical Moment

Water is a right!
By Fred Vitale (MWRO Volunteer Coordinator)

The June 22 resignation of Victor Mercado as head of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), coupled with the recent resignation of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick who had appointed him, provides an opportunity to re-launch the fight for the Water Affordability Program (WAP), passed by Detroit City Council in 2006 but never implemented.

The WAP was initiated by the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO) in response to the cutoff of water to tens of thousands of Detroit residents. Those most affected were seniors, people with disabilities, the unemployed, and people receiving state assistance. Those most in need were cutoff from water by a publicly-owned and operated utility! It was, and remains, a scandal.

After many demonstrations, hearings, thousands of phone calls and meetings, City Council passed the program. Within certain limits, it guarantees that every Detroiter will have water. Even though City Council required DWSD to implement the program, it did not. Instead, the Kilpatrick regime passed a vastly underfunded water assistance program that still kept tens of thousands of people without water; it was able to help less than 1,500 people before the money ran out. Money pledged and collected has not been accounted for. While Victor Mercado and Kwame Kilpatrick were in office, City Council did not have the courage or the will to force the department to implement this critical human rights program or request a full accounting of the money spent.

Winning the full implementation of the program in Detroit can help build the struggle to stop shutoffs in all 286 communities serviced by the DWSD. The complete WAP is available from Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, 23 E. Adams, fourth floor, Detroit, MI 48226, for copying and postage costs. To join or support this struggle, please contact MWRO at the address above, phone 313-964-0618 or on the web at www.mwro.org

"Can anyone really own water?"

That's the premise behind, FLOW--an award-winning documentary that interviews scientists and activists alike about the growing water privatization crisis and the world's dwindling fresh water supply. FLOW investigates the insidious $425 billion a year private water industry, and the short-sighted decisions by local governments and nations to sell their most basic and precious resource.

Like many others, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization believes water is a human right that no one has the right to profit from or own. In a region with nearly 20% of the world's fresh surface water supply, we know the irony of what it means to be without water in Michigan. In Detroit and Highland Park alone, thousands of families have had their water shut off for days, months, and even years (see The Water Front film on Highland Park, and Detroit Water Dept Pickets). The conditions that these persons have lived under mirror those found in third world nations--yet politicians don't want to tackle the tough questions of human rights, affordability, and infrastructure.

See FLOW's website for a list of cities where the film is screening along with more info on what you can do to protect this precious resource. Here's the FLOW trailer: