DETROIT — It’s north of 90 degrees and humid, and Rev. Roslyn Mur­ray Bouier is sweat­ing bul­lets at the Bright­moor Con­nec­tion Food Pantry in Detroit as she directs more than a dozen vol­un­teers unload­ing 84 cas­es of water from a U‑Haul. It’s for Detroi­ters with­out run­ning water.

According to a recent University of Michigan study, water bills in the Detroit metro area average $100 a month, about twice what federal affordability standards dictate.

Peo­ple stand by, wait­ing for their turn. A moth­er with two young chil­dren picks up 10 cas­es. One woman who lives with her five grand­chil­dren has a rash on her arms — per­haps from stress, per­haps from not hav­ing run­ning water, per­haps both. The moth­er and the grand­moth­er are ter­ri­fied to talk with In These Times. They have rea­son: Accord­ing to activists, Child Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices (CPS) often removes chil­dren from homes that don’t have water (although CPS, main­tains that a water shut­off is nev­er the sole rea­son for removal). Valerie Jean Blake­ly, an activist who helped orga­nize her neigh­bors against a mass water shut­off, says that some par­ents keep their chil­dren home from school for fear they’ll let slip to teach­ers that they have no water and CPS will be called.

Bank­rupt, Detroit imple­ment­ed the shut-off pol­i­cy in 2014. Since then, accord­ing to the non­prof­it We the Peo­ple of Detroit Com­mu­ni­ty Research Col­lec­tive, more than 100,000 house­holds have had their water turned off. The shut­offs can begin fast, when a bill of just $150 is 30 days past due.

Detroit has both the high­est pover­ty rate of any major U.S. city, at 36 per­cent, and among the high­est water rates. Accord­ing to a recent Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan study, water bills in the Detroit metro area aver­age $100 a month, about twice what fed­er­al afford­abil­i­ty stan­dards dictate.

The city offers a pay­ment plan for those with past due bills to get their water back on, but many res­i­dents see it as a scam. Bouier says it requires pay­ments as high as $200 a month, which may amount to half the pay­check of those on fixed incomes or who can only work part-time.

The city, mean­while, has found the mon­ey to pay sub­con­trac­tor Hom­rich — a wreck­ing com­pa­ny — $7.8 mil­lion to turn off Detroi­ters’ water over the next three years. Sev­en­teen thou­sand homes were at risk shut­off this summer.

Lack of water, com­bined with the hot weath­er, pos­es health risks, espe­cial­ly for old peo­ple, chil­dren, the dis­abled and those who are preg­nant, since dehy­dra­tion con­tributes to mis­car­riage and birth defects. A study by the Icahn School of Med­i­cine found that water-borne dis­eases, such as Hepati­tis A, were more like­ly to occur on Detroit blocks that had expe­ri­enced a water shut­off. The Detroit area is expe­ri­enc­ing the worst Hepati­tis A out­break in the nation, which began in 2016.

The shut­offs have inspired mas­sive local mobi­liza­tion: Four emer­gency water sta­tions like the one in Bright­moor have sprung up around the city. The sta­tions take mon­e­tary and bot­tled water dona­tions and annu­al­ly dis­trib­ute 130 – 150 tons of water. Vol­un­teers even drop off water direct­ly to the homes of those who are unable to pick it up. The drop-offs often hap­pen at night, so nosy neigh­bors will be less like­ly to call CPS.

Detroi­ters are also help­ing each oth­er infor­mal­ly. Those who have water can run food­grade hoses to sup­ply neigh­bors who don’t. Some with­out water sim­ply do their own plumb­ing to bypass the water meter. A spe­cial tool can be used to (ille­gal­ly) turn the water valve back on. Those with the tool lend it freely to neighbors.

The Michi­gan Nation­al Lawyers Guild reports that some peo­ple with ille­gal water hook-ups have been pros­e­cut­ed for ​“mali­cious destruc­tion of util­i­ty prop­er­ty,” a felony. Mon­i­ca Lewis­Patrick, pres­i­dent and CEO of We The Peo­ple of Detroit, calls for the ​“decrim­i­nal­iza­tion of people’s access to water.” Water isn’t meant to be ​“named and claimed,” she says. ​“Every liv­ing thing has a right to water.”

The water shut­offs are trau­mat­ic, says Blake­ly, but it has also brought peo­ple togeth­er. ​“You don’t just think about your­self, you think about every­one,” she says. ​“It’s awful beau­ti­ful. We come togeth­er through love and mutu­al aid, and make sure every­one has what they need.”