Demonstration – Defend Detroit Neighborhoods

Stop the Tax Foreclosures!       Stop the Water Shutoffs!

Stop Dumping Toxic Waste into the Sewer System!

Shutdown the Polluting Incinerator!

July 18, 3:30PM

Gather at Cobo Center (1 Washington Blvd. at Jefferson)

March to the Spirit of Detroit (Woodward and Jefferson)

The demonstration will begin at Cobo Center, where the National Association of Letter Carriers is holding their biennial national convention. Letter carriers will join us in demanding an immediate end to the water shutoffs, tax foreclosures, the shutdown of the incinerator and the toxic waste dumping into the sewer system in one of Detroit’s poorest neighborhoods.

The Detroit ”comeback” has bypassed Detroit neighborhoods. While billionaires receive massive tax breaks and taxpayer funds to finance their private projects in 7.2 square miles of central Detroit, the rest of the city, about 133 square miles, continues to face the largest wave of home foreclosures since the 1930s, while thousands of families face water shutoffs. Meanwhile, toxic waste is dumped into the Detroit Sewer System in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, where sewer backups spread the toxic materials into residents’ basements and streets. Air quality in some neighborhoods is so bad that Detroit experiences the highest asthma rates in the Michigan!

The poverty rate in Detroit is almost 40% and just over 50% for children under 18 years of age. The poverty is deep. In 2015, when Detroit’s median income was $25,980, 21.2% of Detroit households had income less than $10,000, 19.5% had incomes between $10,000 and $20,000, and 14.7% had incomes between $20,000 and $30,000.

Meanwhile, the city’s rulers have diverted the federal Hardest Hit Funds to tear down homes instead of keeping families in their homes. The Hardest Hit Funds were created in the aftermath of the Great Recession when Wall Street was bailed out at our expense. Michigan received $760 million to assist those hardest hit by Great recession by assisting with mortgage and property tax payments, and water bills arrearages attached as liens on those homes. Mayor Duggan hijacked the funds to tear down blighted homes!

Detroit fact sheet

Hosted by Moratorium NOW Coalition, People’s Water Board, Coalition to Oppose the Expansion of U.S. Ecology

Cell: 313-680-5508 email: moratorium@moratorium-mi.org Facebook: @MoratoriumNowCoalition

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