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Gary Brown, director of the Michigan Water and Sewerage had this to say on Facebook: Ms. Kaucheck, in the past year we have tripled the number of residential customers in payment plan arrangements, avoiding a disruption of water service for those customers. In the past 120 days, we have changed our business practices to improve customer service and launched a new assistance program on March 1. On Monday, 449 additional customers entered payment plan arrangements. We continue to collaborate with our community partners, including social service agencies, to offer our customers wrap-around services to help meet their financial and housing needs.
Maureen D. Taylor, state chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization says:
Mr. Brown; It might be that we will never see “eye 2 eye” on this critical subject. Anyone engaged in fighting for the rights of the marginalized will never be able to accept the draconian practice of cutting water off where 10’s of thousands of poor people live, no matter how such a response is framed. The city population has declined, but we are still the largest community in MI! We are Detroit and we are both “bigger and better” than this sad episode demonstrates. We should be national leaders on how we treat the most vulnerable citizens especially when public resources are in question. Privatization steps seem involved covertly here while “carpet-baggers” from everywhere pick at our assets without pause. We suffer from a lack of comprehensive leadership that ignores the well-being of the residents they purport to serve. Water shutoffs, poisoned cities, education assaults, home foreclosures, spiraling unemployment, emergency managers in place of democracy, and FRUMP trying to get into the White House? Mr. Brown, the cost of living is going up and the chances of living are going down. Let My People Go or the plagues will continue…waters have turned brown, the seasons are unpredictable, clergy has been struck silent, mosquitoes carrying new diseases are upon us, floods are everywhere, droughts are right next door, hurricanes are daily and wildfires are too many to count. Change the access to public water narrative that defines how we treat each other before that last plague arrives at the homes of those who won’t hear our cries. Woe unto thee…
