Thanks in advance for the kick!

The hard part's the video. Only a minute or so is OK, I think. Maybe someone on DU knows how to do this?

I believe that you need to set a minimum amount for your campaign on kickstarter - if you don't pass that amount, the money goes back to the people who pledge. Indiegogo is similar but without the minimum amount part.

It's a really cool idea!

https://www.facebook.com/waterbrigade

group of concerned Detroiters. They go from house to house to help those affected... Maybe they have something set up where the rest of us can help.

http://detroitwaterbrigade.org/donate/

http://detroitwaterbrigade.org/volunteer/

http://www.amazon.com/registry/wedding/1H3ZZPKTLGZYL

my inclination is to NOT give the water hoarders any money! would much prefer they be shamed and legally forced to cease and desist.

don't know how to pull that off, tho; appealing to the UN will hopefully move it in a better direction.

Indiegogo might be more accepting.

Suppose we pay off the currently owed fees. They still have to pay their bills in the future. Are we going to be able to continue paying the bills every month, and for how long would we do so?

And what makes it worse is that the costs of operating the water system isn't proportional to the number of customers they have. If they permanently shut off 50% of their water users, they would still probably have 80% of the costs to provide the water. There are definite economies of scale.

It isn't a matter of just paying the unpaid bills. The city needs some assurance that bills will be paid in the future as well so they can pay the cost of treating and pumping the water.

Water is a human right. Clean water, delivered to your tap, costs money and somebody has to pay for it. The operation of a water system is more or less a communitarian, even socialist enterprise whereby the users share in the costs. Ideally, the solution would be, raise the rates on those who can pay in order to subsidize those who cannot. Unfortunately, this would ultimately result in even more customers being unable to pay their bills which would lead to higher rates for the remaining paying customers which would lead to more non-payment which would lead to higher rates ad infinitum. Eventually a handful of customers would be paying the cost of distributing clean water to a much larger group of people who aren't paying for it.

I suppose the city could agree to throw some general tax revenue dollars into the mix but I don't believe they have a lot of them lying around. So some higher level of government is going to have to pitch in. The state seems like an unlikely source since it was they who caused a lot of the problem in the first place, and congress would never approve a bailout for another large impoverished, largely minority city.

That is true for most communities across the country. It has happened every day since you lived in your current community. I feel pretty safe making that assumption. Theirs is being shut off for the same reason as is happening in Detroit.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/planet-detroit-thousands.html

The report comes on the heels of the Detroit's city council's Tuesday approval of an 8.7 percent increase in water rates, part of a long-standing trend that, according to Food & Water Watch, has seen prices increase 119 percent over the past decade. . . .

Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, who was appointed to power by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in March 2013, has aggressively pursued privatization and austerity measures across the city. "Nothing is off the chopping block, including water utilities, which are being considered for regionalization, sale, lease, and/or public private partnership and are currently subject to mediation by a federal district judge," reads the report.

"The Detroit People’s Water Board fears that authorities see people’s unpaid water bills as a 'bad debt' and want to sweeten the pot for a private investor by imposing even more of the costs of the system on those least able to bear them," the report continues.

Dehydration is dehydration. Also, the current situation does not fully back up your claim as to why their water is being shut off. It is in respect to a bigger story.