QR code for installing iPhone app "Detroit Delivers"
Detroit Water and Sewerage Department rolled out a mobile app offering the ability for anyone to report abandoned buildings with running water. The app is available for iPhone and Android smart phones through SeeClickFix. These QR codes can be scanned to take you to the application for downloading to your phone. Or you can click on the link given in the caption.
You'll want to register an email with the site for issues reported to get status updates sent to you. There is an anonymous reporting option, the result is the report appears to be generated by DWSD.
QR code for installing Android app "Detroit Delivers"
Taking a photo for reference will help work crews know specifically which building they are to visit. When I first used the app I typed in the address after finding it through Google Maps with GPS turned on. Oddly the app placed a map pin 6 blocks away from my location as entered. I edited the address to correct it, but I couldn't get the pin to move through my iPhone4 interface.
There is a website interface as well at the bottom of the Detroit Delivers webpage - http://www.dwsd.org/...
One effective way to guide work crews would be to use blue spray paint and put the number for the building on the curb and make a note in the comment where to find the address on the building/lot.
Once entered you'll get emails as the status changes - first to acknowledge, then confirming a work crew has it on their list for the day. There's a completion status also, but I found the work crews came out a second day and got the address correct. So it could be important to guide workers as much as possible. They seem to be arriving on the scene quickly since the report was made on a Friday - they appeared Saturday and Sunday to do the work. I wonder why premium shift hour work is being done, after all the building has probably been leaking for more than a month. The building I reported was leaking at least four years.
Documenting DWSD Run-On Abandoned Water
This is one way for the public to engage in the midst of the water shutoffs crisis in Detroit. It will show how much the department has missed shutoffs all over town. The day I first looked at the map (July 16) the list of reported issues said 12 were closed and 5 were acknowledged. Today it says 38 closed and 20 acknowledged.
Stories from The Neighborhoods
July 21 was the first of 15 days with a moratorium on shutoffs as ordered by Bankruptcy Judge Rhodes to Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. Even while court was in session water shutoffs were being performed. We've heard from one resident that came home to find her water was turned off yesterday. When she called DWSD today they are accusing her of illegal water access, fining her $250 and denying her access to water bill payment programs.
According to DWSD about 80,000 households out of 176,000 are delinquent. Yesterday's Detroit Free Press article stated 15,266 accounts had been suspended and half of those came forward with payment within 24 hours. This means crews came out to shut off service and returned after payment arrangements made to turn the water on again. One has to wonder if the cost of restoring service after shutoff was calculated into the $5.6 million contract with Homrich. DWSD workers appear to be doing a lot of overtime and premium shift time with visits after 7pm and on Saturdays and Sundays.
Darryl Latimer, director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, told Rhodes today the city will kick off a blitz in the media, social media and though churches and community groups to get information out about payment plans and financial assistance for people with documented inability to pay bills.
“We need to time to make sure our aggressive communications efforts reach customers,” the deputy director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, Darryl Latimer, told Detroit’s bankruptcy judge, Steven Rhodes, this morning in federal court. --- Detroit Free Press
At the public meeting on July 16 with DWSD they acknowledged shutoffs were being done according to address. There is no check as to how lives at the property or their health condition. One huge problem is renters don't get notice from landlords hiding past due water charges, and many rental agreements state "water included". This infuriates loyal renters, there is a good chance they would move out, especially if the landlord doesn't restore service promptly.
Detroit is losing occupants due to the created crisis and the mismanaged communications of DWSD & Homrich through direction by the Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. If one wonders if this is a setup - you can be fairly certain it is. Historically Emergency Managers across the state operate just like this. Appointed control does not exercise transparency and Emergency Managers are simply looking at a financial bottom line rather than the lives in the balance. The people are collateral damage in the distress being created.
History and Facts on Water Affordability Program
Michigan Welfare Rights Organization created a Water Affordability Program in 2006 which the Peoples Water Board Coalition and other support groups are requesting the City of Detroit to adopt.
Link to the Water Affordability Program at MWRO website.
History and Facts on Water Affordability