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| 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.
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| 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.
_______________________
_______________________
“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
his grandfather who has Alzheimer's
_______________________
_______________________
“Once
General Motors started pulling out, then the school system started going down,
so we have a lot of empty schools around here… They really don’t care,” she
said.
The “they” she is referring to
is those in the higher echelons of Michigan’s political system. Spann, like a
great number of Flint residents, made it very clear that she feels the
political system in Michigan is not working for the people.
“They could
do better,” she said skeptically, “All they’re doing is talking.”
While the
water crisis seems to be affecting every family in this city of 100,000, the
Spann’s said they are dealing with a very specific and catastrophic result of
the ingestion of the poisoned water. Otis Spann was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
nearly a year ago—one year after Flint’s water source was switched from
Detroit’s Water and Sewage Department to the Flint River. The water pumped from
the Flint River was found to be highly corrosive and caused leeching, sending
high levels of lead into the drinking water, studies have shown and local and
state officials have said. Lead can cause brain damage and memory loss. And all
of the Spann family members believe the poison water has expedited the disease
in Otis Spann.
“He’s a
people person and he tries to go out and talk to people. But he hasn’t been
feeling good lately and he’s pretty much at a standstill,” Judy Spann said,
somberly. “I think the water has had some kind of effect on him, once he
started getting sick. He drank a lot of water.”
Recently,
Otis Spann, sat in the middle of his family, his hands intertwined, earnestly
listening as his family discussed his illness. He chimed in from time to time,
conferring openly about what he was going through and remaining positive.
“I’m not
going to give up, I’m going to do what I have to do to get something going,” he
said, remaining optimistic about the current situation in Flint as well as his
own affliction.
The
couple’s children as well as one grandchild stood behind Otis Spann in the
bright pink living room of the family’s house, where the walls and shelves are
decorated with mirrors and pictures of the Spann’s children and grandchildren
as well as items of religious significance.
The family
recalls Otis Spann’s commitment to the Flint community as a school
administrator.
“He did
wonders for this city, for this community,” Darrell Spann, 40, said
thoughtfully of his father. He also recalled his father going above and beyond
to make sure the children of Flint were taken care of. “He picked kids up, he
made sure they got home safe.”
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| Pamela Powell who lives in Illinois holds a sign during a visit home to Flint, expressing in words her emotions, frustrations and worst fears about the effect of the Flint water crisis. |
While the
family seeks to remain hopeful about the future of Flint and to remain positive
about the eventual end of this crisis, they also have feelings of outrage and
disappointment. In fact, moving away from Flint is something they unanimous
agree is in their near future.
“Before the
water, we wanted to move. And now, we really want to move, Hopefully, we’ll be
gone in another couple of years,” Judy Spann said.
Her grandson Devontae Powell,
21, chimed in, correcting her.
“A couple of months” he said,
advocating that his family relocate to some place where the water is drinkable
and the neighborhood is safe.
Powell is a
college student at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. And
although he is not as immersed in the crisis as other members of his family
because he is away at school, his outrage and disgust run deep.
“Governor
Snyder has really raped these people and our community,” he said, brimming with
anger. “He’s poisoned them, this is genocide.”
“Just like the water was
tainted, the political system is very tainted in Michigan,” Powell added.
He remains mostly concerned
about the wellbeing of those he loves. His family virtually trapped in a
community that has been poisoned by their government; forced to use bottled
water to cook and brush their teeth; having to live with water that has
poisoned them still flowing through their pipes; and still having to pay the
bill for that water.
Still, he
has hope. Not much in man. But in God.
“One of my prayers all the
time, with my grandfather having Alzheimer’s, is just that God allow him to
remember that he can’t use that water,” Powell said. “What happens when my
grandmother is downstairs and he has to use the bathroom? Allow him to remember
that the water is tainted.”
Email: kwitteman@mail.roosevelt.edu
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| A sign not uncommon in Flint since the water crisis express a common sentiment. |
