| Date: | March 28, 2020 |
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By Isaac Stanley-Becker | March 28, 2020
Scores of cities have tried to prevent water deprivation from exacerbating the public-health emergency by pausing shut-offs during the pandemic. Some states have even stepped in. But getting the water turned back on can prove an arduous process, leaving the most vulnerable without basic protection against the coronavirus.
In Buffalo, the water department has agreed to restore service, but is asking residents to call a customer service line to set up an appointment. Local attorneys said the arrangement presumes the city’s most vulnerable residents have access to a telephone, as well as to television or other media where the number has been circulated.
But Oluwole McFoy, the chairman of the board for Buffalo Water, said the city cannot instantaneously switch back on the water, for fear that plumbing problems might lead to flooding. “We need a contact, and we need someone present when our crews arrive,” McFoy said.
The city’s message, he added, was, “Please call, please call.”
Steven Halpern, an attorney at the Western New York Law Center, called the expectation “grossly unfair.” He helped one of his clients, a 67-year-old Vietnam veteran who had been collecting rainwater to flush his toilet, request service, but he said there were “doubtlessly hundreds of others in the city who don’t have lawyers, who haven’t been in contact with anyone about this issue.”
His client, who asked not to be identified, said, “The shower felt so good.”
Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director of the Buffalo-based Partnership for the Public Good, estimated as many as 4,000 households a year have their water shut off for lack of payment. The city should have a list, she said, and could “proactively communicate with these households.”
McFoy said 128 households had been without water in the last month, and 64 had seen the resource restored since the onset of the pandemic. Now, the water department is accepting from advocates a list of their clients most in need of water.
In turn, advocates are asking the city to consider why a resource as fundamental as water is ever switched off.
“Equitable access to affordable water was a national issue even before this crisis,” Halpern said.
Read the full article on the Washington Post website here.