A Much Better Idea

On Friday, I posted about how off base and insultingly wrong PETA was in their cheap publicity stunt offering to pay the water bills of 10 poor Detroit residents if they would consent to become Vegans.  As a person who will always consider myself a Detroiter, I was enraged. I was so enraged, I had to eat a hamburger. I have chosen to become involved in the Human Rights Violation scandal occurring in Detroit.  The unelected Republican appointed Corporate City Managers want to sell the Water and Sewage Services for immediate profit. To kill two birds with one stone, they raised the Water rates 80% in the last few years, the biggest hike coming just this year, after the decision to sell the Water services to a private corporation. This is also a major weapon in the war on the poor, the politics of eliminationism. If you take away their water and make it impossible to get it back, then they have to go somewhere else and die! Easy! Right? So, thousands of poor and middle class Detroit residents had their water services arbitrarily cut for delinquent payments, without due process and in many cases after they residents had tried to find a way to pay the bills. Meanwhile delinquent corporations are not being threatened and the crumbling infrastructure is wasting millions of gallon a month.  This is the ALEC plan! Let the poor suffer and pay for the fiscal irresponsibility of government and let corporate America reap the immediate profit. Here is a link from today's Detroit Free Press that is just a glimpse into the insanity of  Detroit's Corporately managed incompetent Water Theft. Canada has started to organize water relief for the poor and is advancing the effort to declare a human rights emergency at the United Nations. That's a few of the underlying reasons why I felt the PETA proposal was so utterly hypocritical. Well, a few bloggers have a much better idea. Last week the city magnanimously proposed a 15 day moratorium on shutoffs and began reviewing their illegal actions after discovering that they were being sued by a coalition of citizen rights groups. I read in the Washington Post that bloggers, Tiffani Bell, who lives in Boston and Kristy Tillman, who lives in Oakland, California and have never actually met in person, have started a real initiative to help Detroiters pay thy their water bills. They have launched the Detroit Water Project. They have set up a web site where Detrtoiters can fill out a form to verify their account and needs and a way for people to donate anonymously to pay the bills. As ocf yesterday, there were 1400 donors, most donating between $20 and $100, but some donations as high as $2500! 
The Detroit Water Project is not the only way that people can receive assistance with their water bill. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department says there are two other programs to assist people -- the million-dollar Detroit Residential Water Assistance Program (DRWAP) and the nonprofit Wave Fund, which takes donations. To receive assistance, people must prove that they are at poverty level and in need. After providing documentation, people usually receive assistance within three to seven days, says Curtrise Garner, a spokesperson for the Department.
The moratorium on cut offs will end in 12 days, but if people owe now, they are going to be cut off when the moratorium ends. The Detroit Water Project plans to stay active as long as it takes to resolve this crisis. It's a real way for real people to really help real people with no strings attached!

Here is the link for the Detroit Water Project!