Stop the Rate Hike: Our Communities Cannot Pay for Systemic Failure

To the GLWA Board and the public,

The Flint Housing Union stands firmly opposed to the proposed water rate increase.

For years, Flint residents have endured repeated rate hikes with minimal corresponding infrastructure investment in our neighborhoods. We have paid more and more for a system that has failed us, while being told that further increases are necessary to stabilize our fiscal position and satisfy bond obligations. Meanwhile, aging infrastructure remains, and households continue to shoulder the cost of systemic failures they did not create.

This is not just a Flint issue. Our neighbors in Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne Counties are facing the same mounting burden. Across Southeast Michigan, families are being asked to absorb rising costs in the name of financial markets and governmental retrenchment. We reject the idea that our collective outrage is about being “cheap” or unwilling to pay for services. What we are experiencing is price gouging in the name of the bond market and the continued withdrawal of meaningful state and federal investment in public infrastructure.

Water is not a luxury commodity. It is a public good and a human necessity.

When water bills become unaffordable, they do not simply disappear. They accumulate as debt. They turn into water liens placed against homes. Those liens destabilize families, cloud titles, prevent refinancing, and ultimately contribute to displacement. The people harmed first and worst are elders on fixed incomes, working-class families, renters whose landlords pass through costs, and homeowners who are already one emergency away from crisis.

Expensive water destroys communities systematically. It forces impossible decisions: do we pay the water bill or the heating bill? Do we keep the water on or buy groceries? Do we risk the seizure of our home over a public utility debt?

We are calling on GLWA to halt this rate increase and instead:

• Advocate aggressively for renewed state and federal infrastructure investment.

• Prioritize affordability structures that cap household water costs as a percentage of income.

• Shift the burden away from ratepayers and toward structural funding solutions that do not rely on extracting more from those who have the least.

Our communities cannot continue to be the shock absorbers for financial systems that prioritize bond ratings over human survival.

We demand a water system that sustains life, not one that destabilizes it.