The People's Tribune interviewed Marian Kramer from the Michigan Welfare Rights organization bout the struggle to turn water back on for over 45,000 plus homes in the Detroit area. Low income people in Detroit have struggled for a year and a half to implement their own Water Affordability Plan to help alleviate the suffering of families who are daily living without running water in their homes. The Mayor and corporate interests have fought the community's plan every step of the way.
However, on Friday, the Mayor announced his own water program called the Detroit Residential Water Assistance Program Plan. "The Mayor's plan is our Water Affordability Plan. We submitted it to the City of Detroit," said Marian Kramer. "They sabatoged implementation of our plan for a year and a half. Nonetheless, "This is victory. Finally, the plan goes into affect tomorrow. People are going to get some relief."
Some of the changes from the original plan include the allocation of funds. The original plan allocated $5 million whereas the Mayor's plan allocates $2.5 million. "The plan will continue to be implemented after 12 months if the City of Detroit finds more funds," said Kramer. "Also, we didn't see the need for the Detroit Water Department to be the administrator of the plan because we didn't trust them. The Mayor, CEO Victor Mercado, and the Law Department of the Mayor's Office constantly gutted our program. They laid the foundation to get rid of the people we agreed to administer the plan. Then they were able to slash the funding and take the money from original plan and give to the Department of Human Services as the Administrator for the program. This is one of the City of Detroit's controlled departments."
A combination of factors allowed for the victory. One, the community never stopped struggling for their plan. Two, the Mayor lost a court battle recently and needed friends. City residents will now have to pay millions of dollars for a lawsuit that was brought by two former police officers about the way their firing was handling. They had exposed the mayor and his wild party that took place at the Mayor's Mansion. People are angry. Two days later the Water Affordability Plan came out! However, there has been no mention of the 6,300 plus people who have been cut off water within 30 days. Nor has the mayor said anything about the 45,000 homes that were cut off before. THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!
