Katrease Stafford

Detroit Free Press

Nearly 18,000 households in Detroit are at risk for water shutoffs, according to a department official, who said crews are set to begin shutting off service this week.

Detroit Water and Sewerage Department Director Gary Brown said 17,995 households are eligible for shutoffs, a drop from 24,302 customers in 2016.

Brown said customers at risk for shutoff were alerted 10 days ago and given 10 business days to make arrangements to pay. Brown said the department expects nearly 90% of the affected customers to reach out to DWSD within the 10-day window in an attempt to make arrangements.

The department suspends shutoff efforts every winter because freezing temperatures complicate the process. In the past, the hiatus has created a backlog of delinquent accounts that are eligible for water service to be cut once the cold temperatures subside.

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"Every resident in Detroit has a path to not have service interruption," Brown said, adding that shutoff eligibility doesn't automatically mean a customer's service will be cut. "We don’t expect to have nearly the amount of shutoffs we did last year. ... If they do get service interruption, within 24 hours they’re going to be back in and we'll get them on payment plans."

Detroiter Carmen Booker, who attended the DWSD Board of Commissioners meeting Wednesday with her mother Sally Booker, blasted the city's method of shutoffs. Booker said her water was shut off this week.

"They came out to my house and shut my water off," Booker said. "...They said I was not protected by my payment plan. ... Water is a human right. We are people in this city. ... I live here, I work here. I want answers. I'm not a statistic. I'm not a number."

Brown said the department has improved its residential programs and reduced the number of households eligible for shutoffs by 53% within the past three years. As of April 10, 78% of the department's residential accounts are either current or in a payment plan arrangement, Brown said, and the remaining 22% are either close to the shutoff eligibility threshold or are shutoff-eligible.

And according to the department, eligible customers who are prescreened and scheduled for an interview with the Water Residential Assistance Program and remain current on their monthly bill, will not have their service interrupted. Brown said there are 19,218 residential households on a payment plan as of April 10, which includes the 5,766 residents who are enrolled in WRAP.

But for Monica Lewis-Pa trick, president and CEO of We the People of Detroit, it's not enough.

Lewis-Patrick said her organization, which was founded in 2008, has been on the front lines in the battle for what she believes is a dearth of water equality and equity in the city of Detroit.

"My phone was ringing off the hook yesterday," Lewis-Patrick said. "I was being reached out to by retirees from the city who are concerned about the health impact study we just did with the Henry Ford Health System that says the entire city is getting sicker because of water associated illnesses. ... They’re using water that is not purified or safe. Either way, it's due to the fact that they can't afford water and they're having to make other arrangements and that is creating a health crisis for the entire city of Detroit. To have the administration so cavalier in cutting off the water, it is frightening. It's alarming."

Residential customers are not alone.

There are 1,062 commercial accounts that are at-risk for a water shutoffs, according to DWSD. Of that number, 200 of the accounts won't be disconnected because they are senior complexes, nursing homes and apartment buildings, DWSD spokesman Bryan Peckinpaugh said.

"We have an aggressive approach for nonresidential accounts," Peckinpaugh said in an e-mail to the Free Press. "If they don't enter payment plan arrangements, civil action is pursued with a law firm we have under contract."

The Peoples Water Board Coalition on Tuesday renewed its call for an end to water shutoffs in light of the study, which was completed by the Henry Ford Health System's Global Health Initiative and the We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective. Lewis-Patrick said her organization argues that an income-based plan should be created for customers.

According to the study, people living on blocks where there were water shutoffs for past-due bills were more than 1½ times more likely to be diagnosed with a water-associated illness than those on blocks with no shutoffs. The study also shows that common water-associated illnesses are skin and soft-tissue infections and gastrointestinal infections.

“Access to clean, safe water is an issue facing vulnerable populations all over the world,” said Alexander Plum, MPH, GHI senior program coordinator and the study’s lead author in a statement. “This study reinforces a simple fact that people need water to survive. Depriving people of access to water has health consequences.”

Despite the alarming statistics in the study, the lead authors acknowledged that there are limitations to the findings.

"...We did not evaluate individual cases for route of acquisition of infection," the findings state. "For example, our finding could be the result of organisms in water sources or an inability to bathe or use the toilet. Second, this is a retrospective population study examining an association between block-level residence, block-level incidence of water shutoffs, and census-tract population statistics of illness and social vulnerability. Our study is not designed to make a causal link between water shutoffs and illness."

Brown said he's set to meet with some officials within the next few days to learn more about the study, but he argues that the city's programs to help residents has been lauded by many. Brown said various initiatives by the department, including the new rollout of dozens of kiosks across the city to help residents pay bills, has decreased the number of delinquent accounts.

"It's been hugely successful," Brown said. "Detroit is pretty slow to catch on that this is a pretty robust program. I'm hoping at the end of this year to get it down to 4,000 or 5,000 (delinquent accounts). There's this myth that Detroiters don’t pay their bills. The majority are paying their bills on time. ... We have gone from a collection rate of 77% of what we billed when I started last January to a collection rate of 92%. And yesterday, we had 600 payments on the kiosks."

Yet for Lewis-Patrick, the work that the water department has done is a moot point for many of the Detroiters who will be without water, which she said is a basic human right.

"Many of the Detroiters are suffering in silence because there's so much shame in not being able to afford your water," Lewis-Patrick said. "It's not that people are not working, it's that people are underpaid and working two to three jobs just to make ends meet.This is reckless leadership on every level. This is water injustice."

Contact Katrease Stafford: kstafford@freepress.com or 313-223-4759.