The Human Right to Water Comes to Cleveland

In late December, the NAACP LDEF filed a federal class action lawsuit under the Fair Housing Act, the 14th Amendment, the Ohio Constitution, and the Ohio Civil Rights Act challenging Cleveland with racial bias in its practices of denying hearings, shutting off water, and converting water debt to tax liens.   LDF reports that this is the first Fair Housing Act lawsuit to challenge a city’s practice of placing liens on residents’ properties due to overdue water bills.  According to the complaint, the water department placed significantly more water liens in majority-Black Census blocks than in majority-white blocks in the county, even when comparing neighborhoods with the same median income.

“For years, black Clevelanders have been plagued by excessively high water bills, service shutoffs, and the risk of losing their homes due to water liens,” said Coty Montag, the lead attorney on the lawsuit for LDF. “Cleveland Water must change its practices to ensure that all residents have access to clean, affordable water, a basic human right.”  

For more resources on the human right to water in the U.S. context, see Defending the Human Right to Water,  Tapped Out: Threats to the Human Right to Water in the Urban U.S., LDF’s own report titled Water/Color, and The Human Right to Water in the U.S.: A Primer for Lawyers and Activists.