Cutting off access to water and sanitation should cause moral outrage in any country, particularly amid global wealth and productive capacity that are sufficient to meet the basic needs of all people. It is particularly shocking in the US, in a city that was the global center of auto manufacturing and is surrounded by 20% of the world’s fresh surface water. As an urgent response to over 30,000 Detroit households being denied access to water and sanitation, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO), Detroit People's Water Board Coalition and other allies organized the International Social Movements Gathering on Water and Affordable Housing in May 2015. The gathering ultimately drew 200 human rights advocates and grassroots leaders to Detroit from across the US and several other countries.
The City of Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history on 18 July 2013. Although Michigan residents had voted down the state’s emergency manager law in a 2012 referendum, the state legislature and governor passed and utilized a similar law (Public Act 436) to impose an emergency manager on Detroit, in March 2013. With almost unlimited power to negotiate the city’s future, the emergency manager contracted the services of Veolia North America to guide restructuring of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.
By October 2014, some 30,000 households had faced water and sewer disconnections, prompting the visit of two United Nations Special Rapporteurs. Their statement stressed that “thousands of households are living in fear that their water may be shut off at any time without due notice…and that children may be taken by child protection services as houses without water are deemed uninhabitable for children.” Despite their critique and substantial media coverage, unpaid water bills are now being attached to overdue property taxes, exposing thousands of homeowners to property tax foreclosure.
