I run The Human Utility (formerly the Detroit Water Project) and we help folks with their water bills. When they reach us, they're used to dealing with other social service agencies that aren't very responsive and don't do something as basic as ever calling them back. We do and we find that people are grateful even for that.
Edit: People are happy to hear from us regardless of whether we actually help with their bills. If we say we can't, at least they know to try elsewhere and can do so fairly quickly.
I have to +1 this. Whilst I have never specifically dealt with Human Utility. A couple of times when I had an inquiry or an issue, I have been offered to be called back later rather than wait and eventuall call back myself. Each time I appreciated the phone call.
"I don't think this is a good solution to this problem."
Why? Why isn't giving people money (direct to the utility, as we never hand people we help the funds) to get their water turned back on when they've gone for weeks without running water not a good solution? When you encounter someone in that situation, what would you suggest?
"Many of the customers get shut off and then immediately pay their bill along with the penalties."
That's often true, but what many people (including yourself and, oddly, staff at utilities) don't consider is that these people are often robbing Peter to pay Paul. We've got people skimping on medication and food they need in order to keep their utilities on. So, yes, they may pay as soon as the water is shut off, but there's often a trade-off.
"This is often cyclical with the same people getting shutoff every couple months. Appears to me to be administrative."
This also does happen, but talking to hundreds of families with difficulties paying their water bills, you start seeing patterns. A pattern of multiple shut-offs is usually indicative of some other deeper problem(s). There are people who are between jobs. There are people who've had their hours at work cut. There are people on fixed incomes where even the smallest fluctuation in the water bill (or another bill) can prevent them from paying in full. They pay what they can, but arrearages build up, and next thing you know, service is disconnected.
One of the things we're going to begin working with Detroit and Baltimore to do better is pick up on these signals and act. Prevention is always better than treatment.
Also, if you consider where we work (Detroit and Baltimore), these aren't exactly places teeming with amazing employment opportunities for many of the people we serve (the elderly, single parents already juggling multiple jobs, people with minimal education, etc.). Obviously, a stable job is a big part of consistently paying your bills. You can hold all the budgeting classes you want, but good luck getting people there who barely have the funds to keep their families afloat to sign up. Not having enough to make ends meet is not always the result of poor budgeting.
And yes, illegal service restoration does have the potential to damage equipment, but when your customers have to resort to that, it's indicative that your utility has failed to look after especially vulnerable customers. Detroit is especially odd with respect to indigent customers as they don't have a program to assist low-income customers with a discount or the like. Same goes for the elderly. Baltimore has a discount for the elderly, at least.
Thanks for the comment. Yes, there are programs in place that help people with their bills. They've a number of problems, however. Some ran out of funds and couldn't help any more people. What's interesting about those programs is that a few (including the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department itself) started referring people to us. Others (such as state-run programs) moved too slowly to prevent shut-offs.
Yes, there are people who simply choose not to pay their bills. When we determine that's the case with an applicant, they don't get assistance. Simple.
On top of that, we provide one-time assistance, so there isn't an opportunity to just decide to lean on us and stop paying a bill.
When looking through your website, I didn't see any information regarding any of what you've mentioned. As a Detroiter, I take it personal when organizations try to award pity on the city, as if we're some type of charity case. Yes there are some that are in real hardship for the moment, while other make choices. It is those choices that has led to the ruin porn of Detroit. I simply don't agree with providing assistance every time a hardship is presented versus providing resources for people to ensure it never happens to them again. I probably don't have to tell you the story of "Teach a man how to fish" or provide links on how giving away anything has statistically not helped; which others have already done.
I know people taking advantage of the programs already established and organization like yours. As you may determine a fraud case with some applicants, I would find it very hard to believe there is no fraud.
So shouldn't the project focus on providing decentralized water management to residents (roof capture, condensing from the air) instead of funneling money into a system used for tax collection with the side effect of providing water?
Solar can be used for distributed generation, why can we not provide distributed water production?
From talking to hundreds of people over the course of running this project, in many cases, what we have is not a failure to organize one's life. Instead, it's life events such as being laid off or having a medical issue get out of hand and force a person to leave work and forgo a salary that cause people to fall behind and need assistance.
In other cases, people are in situations where they're not earning enough to cover all of their life expenses, but the water department itself has turned them down for assistance. We see their attempts to do the best they can in their payment patterns. $25 here, $50 there as soon as they can.
These are not people that sit around actively looking for handouts. And many people we've helped have volunteered to help us however they can.
