John,

Our government keeps finding billions of dollars to support bombs and weapons being sent to kill children in Gaza, but we can’t seem to find money and resources for our families here.

Most U.S. families live paycheck to paycheck and millions cannot afford ever-rising bills for water and other essential services. “The United States is facing a growing affordability crisis, leaving many low-income families with impossible choices between paying their water bill and paying for food or medicine, or living in fear of having their water shut off,” explained water equity and climate resilience leader Yasmin Zearpoor.

Families with mounting debt for water and other utilities face cruel shutoffs of water and other utility services that are essential to survival. People also face possible eviction or having their kids taken away simply because they can’t afford skyrocketing water bills. This is a crisis: We urgently need to treat access to water as the fundamental right it is.

In 2021, Rep. Debbie Dingell and I helped establish an emergency Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program that saved lives and helped families pay for water. That money has now run out, so we just introduced the H2O UP Act (Half-Century Update for Water Access and Affordability Act) to establish a permanent federal low-income water affordability program.

Will you sign on to support our new legislation to ensure universal access to drinking water for all low-income households?

Within the Environmental Protection Agency, this new water affordability program would provide technical assistance to water systems and financial assistance to low-income households for drinking water, including direct financial assistance, debt relief, and support with reconnection of services and water efficiency.

PolicyLink is one of 40 organizations supporting the legislation, and Yasmin Zearpoor is a leader within the group who said:

“The introduction of the H2O UP Act of 2024 makes meaningful steps by pairing direct water bill assistance with systemic reforms that address the root causes of unaffordable water. This legislation is a comprehensive approach to ensuring safe and affordable water for all, now and in the future.”

We can pay for this—and for other infrastructure changes like replacing every lead pipe in our country—with a tiny portion of the military budget, which grows by billions of dollars each year despite the Pentagon failing every single audit.

Will you add your name as a grassroots co-sponsor of the new H2O UP Act to establish a permanent federal low-income water affordability program?

Thank you. Together we will keep fighting to save lives and protect human rights at home and abroad, including the right to life-sustaining utility services like water, electricity, and gas. These are basic human needs and rights which must be accessible to all, not commodities to be privatized or sold for profit.

Always in service,

Rashida

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Rashida Tlaib
Date: Thu, Dec 5, 2024
Subject: Sign on to support new legislation to expand access to drinking water:
To: [email protected]

John,

While our country continues to find the funding and bombs for a genocide, here at home families across the country can't afford water. In the richest country in the world, millions of our neighbors have their water shut off as the cost continues to rise.

Access to clean water is a fundamental human right, and cutting off water anywhere is a form of violence—in Michigan, throughout the U.S., in Palestine, and beyond. Our government keeps finding billions of dollars to support war and genocide, but not clean drinking water for U.S. residents, which families need in order to survive and to stay in their homes.

Back in 2021, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and I established a $1.1 billion Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program to save lives and keep people’s water flowing during the pandemic. That first-ever emergency program has expired and families urgently need assistance to access drinking water.

So Rep. Dingell and I just introduced the H2O UP Act (Half-Century Update for Water Access and Affordability Act) to establish the first-ever permanent federal low-income water affordability program.

Can you add your name as a grassroots co-sponsor of our new legislation to support our communities’ access to safe, reliable drinking water?

Amidst Detroit’s ongoing waves of water shutoffs for unpaid water bills, a community-based grassroots organization We the People of Detroit has been distributing water to families in my community, doing critical research about water shutoffs’ risks to public health, and advocating for equitable water access locally and around the world.

We the People of Detroit is among the 40 regional and national organizations endorsing the H2O UP Act, and CEO and co-founder Monica Lewis-Patrick said:

“This legislation tackles the water affordability crisis from multiple angles, ensuring households receive a water bill they can afford while also supporting water systems with the technical assistance and funding necessary to maintain safe, reliable service. Integral to the Act’s success is the establishment of Community Advisory Committees, which provide local residents, nonprofits, and stakeholders a seat at the table to guide program implementation in each region.”

This policy would be a step toward involving more people in co-governance as well as ending dehumanizing water shutoffs. The U.S. federal government sent more than $20 billion taxpayer dollars to Israel’s military this past year and keeps growing the U.S. military budget by tens of billions every year, so it should be able to afford billions of dollars annually to ensure universal access to clean drinking water.

Will you sign on to demand water as a human right and support our new H2O UP Act to ensure safe, affordable water for all low-income U.S. households?

Together, we’re going to keep fighting for our human rights, including everyone’s right to access the utility services they need to survive.

In solidarity and service,

Rashida