Collapsed Pause

Week 69 of the Occupation

The move toward bankruptcy in Detroit is complicated and complex. The most direct way to understand what is happening is a slogan being used by some local community advocates. “First they shut off our democracy, and then they shut off our water.”

The continuing crisis in the lives of people caused by the willful pursuit of shut offs in spite of a massive national and international outcry shows the real values and motives behind those who support emergency managers. They are determined to reshape the city by driving out many of those who have lived here and created a culturally vibrant, radically inclusive community.

Under the direction of Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, the leadership of the water department told a federal judge, the people of Detroit and the world that there would be a “pause” in the draconian water shut off policy. Neither the Water Department nor the Emergency Manager has the capacity or the will to make this claim a reality. Instead, they said what they needed to placate the judge and the media, and continued to assault neighborhoods. They manipulate media symbols and avoid substantive solutions.

When I heard DWSD spokesman Bill Johnson explain that they were not establishing a “moratorium but a pause,” I thought of asking him what he thought a moratorium meant. Now, nearly half way through the grace period presented as an opportunity to allow those who cannot pay to make arrangements, I find DWSD doesn’t know what “pause” means.

Within a day of the announced pause, the volunteer hotlines around the city reported that shut offs were continuing. Water shut offs in neighborhoods reflected the same confusion as those the day before the pause. Some people reported being shut off after making payments on bills, some received no notice, and some said landlords had not paid, even though rent had been forwarded in full.

Meanwhile, the DWSD made much of the fact that they are using this “pause” to go back and check up on people who should not have water, because they were shut off before. The DWSD thinks that criminalizing desperation is a good thing. They are charging people $250 as a penalty for the first time they are “caught” with water that was somehow restored, and another $500 for a second offense.

It seems exceptionally cruel to place such exorbitant fees on people who could not come up with the cash to pay the bill in the first place. Moreover, there is absolutely no connection between the fee assessed and what it costs to perform the task. The blatant use of an outlandish fee structure to wring more money out of people least able to afford it continues the same thinking that refuses to acknowledge the water system is broken.

Also within a day of the “pause” it became clear that DWSD could not handle efforts by people to use their services. The phone numbers for customer service lines didn't work. If people were actually able to get through, they reported being placed on hold for hours, only to be given numbers that didn’t work.

No one in the DWSD seems to have any idea of what will happen when the $1 million is gone. Nor do they offer any thinking about what will happen to those who do not fit into the overly restrictive guidelines that the DWSD has established for help, but still cannot pay.

Instead of using this time to meet with the People’s Water Board to talk about a serious affordability plan, the DWSD has continued to justify its shut-offs and disregard its obligations to its citizens. They persist in demonizing people rather than looking at the structural defects of a system that has collapsed. An Emergency Manager concerned with protecting banks and increasing corporate profits at the expense of our most vulnerable neighbors protects this callous incompetence.

Teaching Responsibility

By Kim Sherobi

In the booklet, Responsibility, Foundations of Democracy, the Center for Civic Education lists six sources of Responsibility

Promises, Assignments, Occupation, Rules and Laws, Customs, Civic Principles.

I don’t disagree with this list. But in my 25 years as a Physical Education teacher in the Detroit Public Schools, I discovered much simpler ways of teaching responsibility, ways that are also available in neighborhood play.

For example, if a player falls or is hurt during a game, we stop playing and do not resume until it is clear that he or she is OK.

Another example is how we speak to each other. Do we holler and scream? Or do we take time to encourage and explain?

How do we treat the referee? Recently a soccer player got so angry with the decision of a referee that he struck him, and the referee died.

It really goes back to how we treat each other; to whether we view ourselves as members of a beloved community.

The Beloved Community is not a specific destination or place. It is made up of everyday people like you, me or us.

This community starts with thoughts inside an individual that radiate outside to create a loving environment. Beloved Community members are committed solutionaries and healers who believe in collaboration, compassion, inclusion and other human qualities that build and nurture people and the earth.