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Heartache & Hope: A Woman's Tears

The hands of a woman in Flint show a skin rash that she believes is the result of washing them in toxic drinking water. Rashes like these are not uncommon for people here, including children and infants,since the water crisis began in 2014.

By Alyson Jurgovan
        FLINT, Michigan—Three women shed tears. They are mothers, they are daughters, they are wives. And they are all living in a national crisis. A highly corrosive river flows through the town of Flint, Michigan. This is where their drinking water comes from. They tell tales of heartbroken homes, of children in pain and of dreams diminished. Only these tales aren’t fables. They are real and they are told through a woman’s tears.

In April 2014, Flint, Michigan, began using a poisoned water source. Their government knowingly switched from Detroit’s Water and Sewage Department, which gets its water from Lake Huron, to the Flint River, to cut costs. Untreated and highly corrosive, the water caused the city’s lead pipes to leach, making the drinking water contain high levels of lead. In effect, Flint residents have experienced a deteriorating community with significant reported health illnesses, effects and defects.

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"The water crisis has really brought a sense of fear. I’m always wondering if there’s enough water for my family members…"

—Pamela Powell

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Holding Fast to Faith While Some Flee Flint: 'Im Not Going Away'

Mary Stewart, 69, said she loves her city and her church and places her faith and turst in God. "I'm not going anywhere until they take me out on a stretcher."

By Elisabet Bernard

            Mary Stewart sat in the lobby of the Shiloh Apartments complex in Flint, Michigan, 69, and full of smiles. “Been here for about 15 years—something like 13, 14, 15 years, and I’ll be 70, July 31,” she said.

            Today, Stewart is one of the faces of the poisoned. Among the victims of lead poisoning in Flint, where a publicly acknowledged manmade human tragedy has exposed the city’s population of almost 100,000 to hazardous drinking water.

            By the time Stewart told her story on a snowy day this spring, the national media had long descended on the former automotive city. And for a time, there wasn’t a day that went by that Flint wasn’t in the news.

But while the media highlighted important facts about the failure of the state and local governments to prevent this tragedy, there are other stories here, more human stories.  Stories beyond the numbers and failed government. Stories about the illness and disease that have afflicted people here since the suspicions about the water were confirmed. Stories about those who believe that their sufferings today may be directly related to their ingesting of poison water over the last two years. Stories of resilience and faith. Stories like Stewart’s.

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“It’s not easy, it’s just a lot, a lot of trouble. You try to trust in God and hope that some of the things will pass by.” —Mary Stewart

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Dedicated to Their City; Two Political Sons Fight The Good Fight

Flint City Councilman Eric Mays shows records that form the paper trail of the city's water crisis that has impacted this city of 100,000.

By Kurt Witteman

Flint City Councilman Eric Mays talks with
Roosevelt student journalists.

            FLINT, Mich.—As Eric Mays, 57, strolled around the streets of Flint, one Sunday afternoon, he was greeted enthusiastically by name by nearly all he passed on the street. He cheerfully acknowledged the citizens and stopped to chat about the ongoing crisis affecting the city. Mays, a tall, slender man, wore a long peacoat over his blue suit as he walked through the city’s streets, often stopping to light a cigarette and stand quietly, thoughtfully, while he looked up and down the streets of his city.

            “These are the people that I know: family, friends… This is an environment I know, I know the town, I know the streets,” he said.

            Mays is one of the politicians here working to make Flint a once again thriving city—one of the few that people here trust. The public’s trust here is something that eroded here in a city that has been ravaged by both General Motors’ departure, by poverty and decline and also by what many here see as a dereliction in governmental duty that left them without clean drinking water. 

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       “There are some things that have failed…
  We can have safe water.” —Eric Mays

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An Outpouring of Love; A "Convoy of Hope"

Convoy of Hope, a faith-based, not-for-profit, has been at the forefront of providing free bottled water and food in Flint, Michigan.

By Joshua M. Hicks

Workers unload case after case of bottled
water in the parking lot of the Greater Holy
Temple Church of God In Christ on a snowy
day in Flint from morning well into afternoon.

FLINT, Mich.—On a spring Saturday, around 11 a.m., snow fell from the sky, piling up on the streets. Vehicles idled around The Greater Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, like parking for an Easter morning service.

Workers moved vigorously to create packages to give to those who lined up. The process was frustrating, upsetting, and inspiring for some workers. However, the main word summing up the activities in the church’s parking lot and across Flint was “survival.”    

       In Flint, Michigan, the water crisis has taken a turn for the worst in many people’s lives, many here say. Mothers struggle to take care of their families without clean water. And many people here have suffered sickness and diseases over the past two years that officials and local residents say are related to poison drinking water tainted by lead and reportedly also containing cancer-causing chemicals.

       A mother of three, Terraca Rogers’ said her children developed rashes that sometimes discolored their skin. At the time they all were tested, the doctors couldn’t determine the problem, the mother said, although she  suspects that the poisoned water is to blame.

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“I was really trying to stop myself from crying…I have never seen this kind of love from all over the country.”—Sandra Jones

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Business Owners Weathering The Storm With Hope, Humor

By Daly Tongren

David Berry, owner of RaspberriesRhythm Cafe and Bar holds
up a sign on which he has written one word to describe these days
in Flint since the water crisis.

FLINT, Michigan—On a winter Sunday afternoon here, the snowy business hub of Saginaw Street appears empty. The cobblestone walkways are nearly barren, and many local shops and restaurants are closed for the day. As the dinner hour approaches, only a small number of pedestrians file into local restaurants.

            The restaurants, like all of the other buildings and homes in Flint, rely heavily on water to get through their day-to-day services. Since the city’s water crisis, in which it was determined that lead-poisoned water soon began flowing from the city's water pipes into residents' homes after a switch in the local water source that left the city reliant on the Flint River, many of these restaurants and businesses have struggled to keep their doors open.

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“I hear jokes. …I’ve heard all kinds. I laugh with them.

It’s not a joke, it’s just to lower the stress level.” —David Berry

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Even Amid Faith, Family & Flint, Uncertainty Looms

Pamela Powell who grew up in Flint chats with Roosevelt University student-journalists this spring in the troubled city still
reeling from the effects of lead-laden water. (Next to Powell is her son Devontae and her brother Darrell Spann. Her father
Otis Spann, 73, is seated. 

By Kurt Witteman

FLINT, Mich.—Among the boarded up houses covered in spray paint, and the once proud homes now crumbling to the ground, families still live in Flint, Michigan. Despite the adverse conditions. Despite the crisis caused by poison water.

The once prosperous city has turned into a town of collapsing brick and wood structures, often inhabited by squatters or turned into drug houses, some here say. And yet, families remain and go on living as they always have.

       One of those families is the Spanns, a family with deep ties to the Flint community. Otis Spann, 73, is a once prominent administrator in the Flint public school system. His wife, Judy Spann, 64, is a former longtime employee of General Motors, once based in Flint. For the Spanns, Flint is home. And while they live through their current hardship, it remains that way. Flint is still home.

Dilapidated houses like this one dot the landscape in Flint, once
a thriving "Vehicle City." Graffiti on the house reads: "We All
We Got"--not an uncommon sentiment here amid the crisis.

      “It’s hard but we’re trying to adjust, we have bottled water. I have jug water to cook with… But it’s terrible, one hundred percent, it’s really inconvenient,” said Judy Spann, sitting in the family’s home surrounded by two generations.

Judy Spann is both a mother and a grandmother and has been in Flint for nearly the entirety of her life. She remembered a time when Flint was not a desolate place, but instead was a place of opportunity. She worked for General Motors while they had a heavy hand in Flint and she laments the company’s leaving.

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“What happens when my grandmother is downstairs

and he has to use the bathroom?

Allow him to remember that the water is tainted.”  

—Devontae Powell on his worries about 
his grandfather who has Alzheimer's

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In Barber's Eyes, Crisis Boils Down to Broken Promises

Bryant's Barbershop in Flint, Michigan, stands as a symbol of hope and resilience amid the water crisis. The shop's owner Norm Bryant says: "I think it's only fitting and proper that we advertise how great Flint is rather than be bogged down by the water problem."

By Peter Rubinstein

         FLINT, Mich.—The derelict homes and storefronts that sprang upwards from Flint, Michigan’s deep snow banks on a cold Saturday in March stood as defiant survivors among the remains of the once flourishing, Midwestern town. A half block north of Clio Road’s modest drive-thru market and abandoned gas station, and nestled snugly against a liquidation center, stands Bryant’s Barber Shop. Past its sun-worn, sky blue banner and through the matching, buzz-in door, the warmth and signs of life that had evaded its surrounding exterior seemed to congregate within its walls.

            The owner, Norm Bryant, was surrounded by shelves and surfaces plastered to infinity with sports memorabilia, framed photos of his family and idols and haircutting accoutrements as he reclined in one of three antique, leather chairs. The shop’s interior, along with his ring of white facial hair and the Negro League baseball cap atop his head, serve as visual components of a meticulous timeline stretching through the decades that Bryant has experienced during Flint’s gradual decline.

            “I feel like we took two steps forward and three back,” Bryant said.

            Despite the city’s disastrous water crisis and financial resentment over General Motors’ near abandonment during the 1980s, Bryant has remained a steady source of support for a community in desperate need. He has managed to stoke embers of passion and confidence in his fellow townsfolk that had otherwise dimmed since his own generation’s heyday by creating and promoting a lifetime of righteous institutions within the area.

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“The people who get elected now, they got an axe to grind and their own private agenda,” he said. “As taxpayers, we got to pay for their faults.” 

— Norm Bryant

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The Cost of Water? A Price Too High, One Family Says

In Flint, President Barack Obama has declared a state of emergency and ordered federal aid to help local and state funding.

By Rachel Popa

        FLINT, Mich.—Flint. Vehicle City. Once a bustling city of over 200,000 people, now less than 100,000 remain. In the past, Flint, Michigan was a symbol of American prosperity. Now Flint is synonymous with neglect and decline.

In 2014, after the city of Flint started receiving its drinking water from the Flint River rather than pumping it in from Detroit in an effort to save costs, residents started reporting discoloration in their drinking water, among other problems. Flint’s water was eventually rendered undrinkable due to the high amount of lead present in the city’s supply. And still without a new water system, many here still don't trust their drinking water.

Hundreds of families have been affected by the poisonous water, including the Spann family, which has lived in Flint for over 60 years.

            “I came to Flint when I was two years old,” said Judy Spann, 64, surrounded by two generations of family in her Flint home, including her son, Darrell Spann, her daughter Pamela Powell, and her grandson, Devontae Powell.

Pictures of her children and grandchildren decorated shelves adorned with knickknacks and keepsakes. Almost every corner of the living room where the Spann family gathered was adorned with memories: graduation pictures, trophies, and even a bust of President Barack Obama smiled at visitors from a glass coffee table.

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“I’m not going to give up,” he said. “I’m going to do what I have to do.”—Otis Spann

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Reflections: "Language A Weapon in Fight For Social Justice" - Luz Magdaleno

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RELATED

LOUDER THAN A BOMB YOUTH POETRY FEST 

March 2016

PERFORMANCE BY 

TEAM REBIRTH 

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Reflections: "At Least Two Sides to Every Story" - Rachel Popa

Reflections: "Having Looked Into Their Eyes"- Peter Rubinstein

Reflections: "Faith is..." - Elisabet Bernard

Reflections: "Hoping Flint Will Thrive Again" - Kurt Witteman

Reflections: "It Could Have Been You" - Joshua M. Hicks

Reflections: "On Environmental Justice" - Jeniah Hall

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RELATED STORY

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Reflections: "Transformation" - Daly Tongren

Reflections: "Covering a National Story" - Alyson Jurgovan

Questions Linger in Flint Like a Bad Taste

By John W. Fountain

Mary Stewart of Flint says she is facing the water crisis in
               Flint with hope and faith.

FLINT, Mich.—A silver-haired woman with butterscotch skin, Mary Stewart sits inside Shiloh Commons Apartments, telling us her story: After four heart attacks and two strokes, Stewart, 69, recently learned she has a cyst on one kidney.

It may be cancerous, she says. She thinks it may have been caused by the “bad” water, the corroded pipes, the dangerous levels of lead in the drinking water. But she’s not sure.

Indeed Stewart’s testimony is among many in this city of 100,000, where residents complain of disorders, disease and assorted ailments since the water two years ago started coming out of the faucet orange and foul smelling.

In case the world has forgotten, in Flint, questions still linger, like a bad taste—in this city declared by President Barack Obama to be in a state of emergency.

Indeed “we” found Flint well immersed in a public health crisis, flooded with fears over the unknown. And yet, saturated with faith and with hope.

I came to Flint recently with a team of student-journalists in my class at Roosevelt University. We came to capture the human story. To chronicle, “The Faces of the Poisoned.”

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“We’ve got to have people hear our cry.”

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Among them is Deonta Malone, 10. A soft-spoken boy, he bears a stubborn purplish rash on his right thigh. His family blames the water. Reduced to taking birdbaths with heated bottled water, Deonta told us he dreams of the day he’ll be able to run the tub full and delight in a long hot bath, like he used to—on the day life finally returns to normal.

Whenever that is, however, no one around here seems to know.

Terraca Rogers, a mother of three, sits inside Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, reflecting on the personal impact. The hands of her children, Shamya, Brianna, and Malik, she recalls, began peeling, started looking like dried prunes. The skin of one of her daughters turned charcoal black. She had all her children tested for lead. No trace. No answers from doctors.

But the rashes and skin disorders only showed up after the city switched its water source in April 2014, from “Detroit” water to the polluted Flint River. That’s why Rogers, like most everyone here, suspects it’s the water—poison water.

In fact, officials say the water funneled from the Flint River to many homes was a toxic soup.

 “It’s difficult,” Rogers said. “You have to change your whole routine of how you do things, getting up extra early just so the kids can have fresh and warm water—when you get up in the morning to wash their face, to brush their teeth and even make breakfast with,” she explained. “It’s difficult.”

That much was clear and as palpable as the sense of faith and hope, flowing through the parking lot of Greater Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, where throngs of volunteers, working in the Saturday cold unloaded two semitrailers of bottled water, food and snacks, and filled the cars of local residents.

Also clear is that local churches and volunteers from across the country have become the lifeline for people deprived of a basic human right: Access to clean water.

Clear that despite the erratic ebb and flow of the national media spotlight on Flint, that a crisis here continues with measurable day-to-day impact and irreversible damage already inflicted upon untold lives.

            After having stared into their faces and listened to their stories, I feel compelled to say, just in case the world has forgotten, there is still a crisis in Flint.  

“We’ve got to have people to hear our cry,” Stewart told us.

I only hope we’re all listening.

Story appears as originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com