Local Advocates Make Slow but Steady Progress on Water Affordability

FIGHT FOR RIGHTS VIEWPOINT

Martha F. Davis

In 2014, in the midst of the financial crisis in the US city of Detroit, the city began systematically shutting off water service to tens of thousands of low-income households that were behind in paying their water bills.[1] The implications for public health were profound.[2] Families were unable to bathe, wash clothes or dishes, or rinse food items.[3] Parents feared losing their children to the Children’s Protective Services because of unsafe home environments, or losing their homes to bank liens and foreclosure. And some of the shutoffs were based on incorrect city records, affecting people who were not behind with their payments at all, but who had to live without running water while trying to fight city hall to have it restored.[4]

Building on Detroit’s long history of activism spanning issues from labor rights to civil rights to welfare rights, the affected communities and their allies banded together to call attention to the underlying problems: the rising cost of water and sanitation in a city marked by extreme racial segregation and economic inequality. Grassroots activist groups such as the People’s Water Board Coalition, We the People of Detroit, and the Detroit Water Brigade framed the immediate issue as a violation of the human right to water—a right that the United Nations (UN) had formally recognized just a few years earlier, in 2010.[5] Several UN Special Rapporteurs spoke out on the issue and even visited the city to draw attention to the inhumanity of shutting off water service for people who could not afford to pay the rising costs.[6] Some local Detroit advocates traveled to the UN headquarters to raise the issue directly before the international community.[7] Federal lawsuits brought further attention to Detroit’s actions.[8]

Meanwhile, the people affected by shutoffs had to get by. Neighbors helped one another access water, sometimes finding ways to reverse the shutoffs and other times sharing water jugs and bottles.[9] Using the press, social media, academic research, policy analysis, and plain old organizing, activist groups kept the pressure on the city and the State of Michigan to find a long-term solution to the water unaffordability crisis.

This was not a speedy process. For years, city leaders resisted, rejecting promising affordability plans developed by experts in the field.

Ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic, for all of its negative impacts, made clear that change was possible. Like many other communities around the country, Detroit implemented a moratorium on water shutoffs.[10] The city found other ways to close its financial shortfall. And when the pandemic sputtered out and the moratorium was lifted, city leaders were no longer able to argue that shutoffs were the only way to handle unaffordable water bills.

In 2022, after years of focused organizing and community pressure, activists in Detroit finally achieved their goal of establishing a workable water affordability plan. Called the “Lifeline Plan,” the program offers residents fixed monthly rates from US$18 to US$56, depending on the household income, and also removes past water debt based on a household’s income and water use.[11] Similar plans are in effect in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DeKalb County, Georgia. At the end of 2024, more than 26,700 Detroit residents were enrolled in the Lifeline Plan, with most paying US$18 per month for their water service.[12]

However, this hard-won success in Detroit is not the end of the saga. Only about one-third of eligible households applied for the Lifeline Plan, and many households falling just above the threshold still need assistance. For those households, water shutoffs remain a threat. Further, the Lifeline Plan depends on continued state funding; it is funded through 2025, but its long-term stability is not clear.[13]

In late 2024, Michigan activists led a focused effort to enact a statewide water affordability plan, but their efforts fell short. The comprehensive water affordability bill introduced in the Michigan Legislature would have capped water bills at 2% of the average annual household income in a water provider’s service area for households with incomes up to 135% of the federal poverty level. For households with incomes between 135% and 200% of the federal poverty level, bills would have been capped at 3% of the average household income in the area. The proposal would also have allowed tenants to request that bills be in their name, so that they are not dependent on a landlord to maintain water access.[14] However, despite bipartisan support, the bill was not adopted before the legislature adjourned for the year.

So yes, it is still a glass that is only half full, but the local activism in Detroit and other Michigan communities is having an effect. And the years of advocacy mean that the issue cannot be ignored. The Michigan Legislature will not reconvene until June 2025, but water affordability figures prominently in the proposed budget released by the state’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Among the priorities outlined in her budget are plans to invest in state funding for water affordability, underscoring a pressing issue facing residents around the state.[15] Indeed, a 2023 study by Public Sector Consultants concluded that household water was unaffordable for about 30% of Michigan residents, including 25% of Michigan seniors.[16]

In sum, while there is much more to do and the work continues, the long-term, grassroots-led advocacy to recognize and honor the human right to water in Michigan has made a difference. The issue is being constructively addressed in Detroit, and it is being teed up for serious consideration at the state level. Going forward, the State of Michigan has the opportunity to serve as a pioneering model for other states in the United States confronting the growing human rights challenges of water access and affordability.

Martha F. Davis is a professor of law, co-director of the Center for Global Law and Justice, and faculty director of the NuLawLab at Northeastern University, Boston, United States.

Please address correspondence to the author. Email: m.davis@northeastern.edu.

Competing interests: None declared.

Copyright © 2025 Davis. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

References

[1] C. Sabourin, “Responding to the Detroit Water Crisis: The Great Lakes Authority and the City of Detroit,” Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 51/1 (2016); S. Murthy, “A New Constitutive Commitment to Water,” Boston College Journal of Law and Social Justice 36/2 (2016).

[2] M. Sarango, L. Senier, and S. L. Harlan, “The High Health Risks of Unaffordable Water: An In-Depth Exploration of Pathways from Water Bill Burden to Health-Related Impacts in the United States,” PLOS Water 2/3 (2023).

[3] J. Kurth, In Detroit, “Surviving Without Running Water Has Become a Way of Life,” Bridge Michigan (October 24, 2018), https://www.bridgemi.com/urban-affairs/detroit-surviving-without-running-water-has-become-way-life.

[4] S. Neavling, “Oops! Detroit Shuts Off Water to Homeowners with Up-to-Date Bills,” Motor City Muckraker (March 19, 2015), https://motorcitymuckraker.com/2015/03/19/oops-detroit-shuts-off-water-to-homeowners-with-up-to-date-bills/.

[5] United Nations General Assembly, The Human Right to Water and Sanitation, UN Doc. A/RES/64/292 (2010); United Nations General Assembly, Sixty-Fourth Session: 108th Plenary Meeting, UN Doc. A/64/PV.108 (2010); United Nations, “General Assembly Adopts Resolution Recognizing Access to Clean Water, Sanitation as Human Right, By Recorded Vote of 122 in Favour, None Against, 41 Abstentions” (July 28, 2010), https://press.un.org/en/2010/ga10967.doc.htm.

[6] United Nations, “Joint Press Statement by Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living and to Right to Nondiscrimination in this Contexts, and Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, Visit to City of Detroit (United States of America) 18-20 October 2024” (October 20, 2014), https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2014/10/joint-press-statement-special-rapporteur-adequate-housing-component-right.

[7] J. Kurth, “United Nations to Hear About Detroit, Flint Water Woes,” Detroit News (January 26, 2026), https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/01/26/un-water/79349514/.

[8] L. Fares, “Federal Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of Detroit Water Shut Off Case,” Jurist (November 15, 2016), https://www.jurist.org/news/2016/11/federal-appeals-court-upholds-dismissal-of-detroit-water-shut-off-case/; A. Olesko, “Detroit Residents Challenge Policy for Water Shutoffs,” Courthouse News Service (July 9, 2020), https://www.courthousenews.com/detroit-residents-challenge-policy-for-water-shutoffs/.

[9] J. Kurth and M. Wilkinson, “I Hate to Complain, but I Haven’t Had Water in a Year. A Detroit Story,” Bridge Michigan (February 17, 2020), https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-health-watch/i-hate-complain-i-havent-had-water-year-detroit-story.

[10] N. Lakhani, “Detroit Suspends Water Shutoffs over COVID-19 Fears,” Guardian (March 12, 2020), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/12/detroit-water-shutoffs-unpaid-bills-coronavirus.

[11] American Water Works Association, “Water Affordability Program Helping Detroit Residents Maintain Service, Pay Bills” (February 8, 2024), https://www.awwa.org/AWWA-Articles/water-affordability-program-helping-detroit-residents-maintain-service-pay-bills/.

[12] N. Rahman, “Detroiters Must Recertify by Nov. 30 to Stay in Water Affordability Plan,” Detroit Free Press (November 15, 2024), https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2024/11/15/detroit-water-affordability-lifeline-plan-bills-debt-income-eligibility/76255050007/.

[13] H. Laguerre, “Detroit Evening Report: City Secures Funding to Extend Water Affordability Plan,” WDET Radio (October 19, 2023), https://wdet.org/2023/10/19/city-secures-funding-to-extend-water-affordability-plan/.

[14] B. Allnutt, “Michigan Legislators Push for Water Affordability in Lame Duck,” Planet Detroit (December 3, 2024), https://planetdetroit.org/2024/12/michigan-legislature-water-affordability-lame-duck/.

[15] G. Wilson, “Michigan Budget Update: What’s in It for Water Affordability, Pollution Cleanup, and Septic Codes?,” Planet Detroit (February 9, 2025), https://planetdetroit.org/2025/02/michigan-governor-budget-environment/.

[16] Public Sector Consultants, “Understanding Water Affordability in Michigan” (November 12, 2024), https://publicsectorconsultants.com/understanding-water-affordability-in-michigan/.