Reconnection and Care
It has taken a global pandemic to stop water shut offs and restore it to homes in Detroit. Barely two weeks ago, the Governor and the Mayor denied the request of activist groups to stop water shut offs for public health concerns. While we are all grateful that the city and state are acknowledging the danger, water shut offs create for everyone, state officials need to do some serious reflection about how they have been thinking about our connections to each other and their public responsibilities.
Robert Gordon, the Michigan Health Director said at the beginning of March, that “there are significant challenges faced by residents whose water has been shut off” but “those challenges do not rise to the level of an imminent danger” because data don't indicate a “causal association between water shutoffs and water-borne disease.” Seriously?
As Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of Flint said, It’s a bit ridiculous to even have such a conversation,” she told Bridge. “Water is a medical and public health necessity. The fact that we have to wait to see the deleterious outcomes is backwards and antiprevention and anti-common sense and anti-science.” She concluded, “If Flint taught us anything, it’s the need to focus on prevention and not wait until we can prove harm.”
Now we are facing a crisis that denial cannot evade. And it is a crisis that is revealing the brutality embedded in the decisions made by our Mayor and his refusal to act to stop water shut offs for more than 5 years.
As many as 10,000 or more homes are now without running water. So far, the City has managed to turn the water on in 73 of them. This is unconscionable. When the city wanted to shut people off from water to do the bidding of wall street banks, trucks raced up streets, shutting off whole neighborhoods, without regard for the chaos and devastation left in their wake. The city shut off more than one in eight households in a matter of months. Now, with many homes facing problems caused by the water shut offs, we are being told the city needs to hire plumbers to be able to restore service.
Meanwhile, the city has set up a system to reconnect people that simply doesn’t work. Requiring cash in hand before scheduling reconnection for people, setting up a single phone number that was quickly overwhelmed, and providing no sense of urgency, the restoration plan is collapsing under its own callous incompetency.
Mayor Duggan prides himself in his ability to solve problems. He is often considered obsessed with tearing down houses at a speed that he claims is the envy of other civic leaders around the country. He does not have that same obsession for the well-being of nearly 1/3 of Detroiters who have had their water shut off.
This crisis is defining who we are as people. It is showing us that unless we care for the well-being of everyone, no one is safe or secure. We are reaping the chaos of disconnection. We now need to reconnect the waters of everyone, as we restore our relationships with a sense of compassion and care.