by Sean Begin
Imagine a city of 700,000, filled with empty, light-less streets and dozens of abandoned buildings and warehouses. Homes fall apart around the families that live there. Poverty is increasingly high. Families go without fresh, running water.
This could be an accurate description of a third-world country. But it’s actually closer to home: Detroit, Michigan.
The decline of Detroit has been a part of the American consciousness for some time now. The recession hit not only the housing market especially hard, but the American automotive industry as well. The Big Three of Detroit — Ford, Chrysler and GM — were bailed out by the government. But while they thrive today, Detroit continues to suffer.
In 2013, they filed for bankruptcy on $18.5 million worth of debt. It was the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in history.
A report released later that year by Kevyn Orr, who had been appointed by Michigan to oversee Detroit’s finances, said the city “is clearly insolvent on a cash flow basis.”
The bankruptcy is the result of the declining auto industry and widespread corruption. In March 2013, a former Detroit mayor was convicted on 24 charges of corruption and bribery that included racketeering, fraud and kickbacks for city contracts, according to an article on BBC.
But things seem to have gotten really out of hand on Monday, when the judge overseeing the bankruptcy case ruled that he had no right to stop Detroit from shutting water off to thousands of homes behind on their bills.
“It cannot be doubted that water is a necessary ingredient to sustaining life,” said Judge Steven Rhodes in his ruling, adding that there isn’t “an enforceable right to free and affordable water.”
Wait, what?
“Detroit cannot afford any revenue slippage,” Rhodes added.
Maybe Rhodes is unaware of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, Section I: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
Here we have a bankruptcy judge calling money for Detroit more valuable than water that is necessary for human survival. Here we have someone who shouldn’t be making decisions. This is just another example of putting money for before humanity, business before the right to life.
Detroit’s problems are many but the people shouldn’t be subjected to a lack of water because they’re too poor to afford it. The government should be finding other solutions to the debt problem that don’t further the burdens of the American poor and lower middle class.
This wildly perplexing decision will hopefully meet swift and furious backlash from the United Nations and a quick reversal. Maybe Rhodes and the government he works for should be more concerned with why a city like Detroit has catastrophically failed financially instead of further grinding the American public into the ground by denying them basic human rights.