NAACP Legal Defense Fund Files Discrimination Suit Against Cleveland Water

Updated: 3:57 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019

The lawsuit filed Wednesday against Cleveland Water alleging discriminatory practices was a last resort, according to an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (NAACP LDF).

Jennifer Holmes told ideastream that the City of Cleveland provided a limited response after the NAACP LDF released the report 'Water/Color: A Study of Race and The Water Affordability Crisis in America's Cities' over the summer.

Among other problems, the report found  11,000 liens were attached to properties between 2014 and 2018. In most years, around two-thirds of the liens were in majority African American census tracts.

“I would describe it kind of as a surface-level letter in response, saying that these problems are not as harmful as we describe,” Holmes said.

The report and lawsuit come in part out of findings by ideastream’s Great Lakes Today reporter Elizabeth Miller in conjunction with  American Public Media. The project’s analysis of water rates and shut-off data in six Great Lakes metropolitan areas — Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Duluth — showed that as cities increase water and sewer rates, shut-offs for non-payment are concentrated in poor communities and communities of color.

“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, lead counsel for the lawsuit and author of 'Water/Color' in a press release . “Cleveland Water must change its practices to ensure that all residents have access to clean, affordable water, a basic human right.”

The NAACP LDF sent the city a demand letter before filing the lawsuit, Holmes added.

“We've been speaking to people on the ground and we have clients and we have evidence that these problems are pervasive and harmful and discriminatory and we'd be happy to sit down with them and see if we can begin to negotiate some solutions,” Holmes said of the letter to the city. “And we did not receive any meaningful response from the city to that letter.”

The lawsuit accuses Cleveland Water of overbilling customers and shutting off water service with little to no notice. The department also fails to advise residents of their rights to challenge bills, Holmes said.

“If people have bills that seem inaccurate, that seem inflated, they should have an opportunity to be heard before the water review board,” Holmes said. “They should also be informed of that right to be heard. They should also receive notice before they have water shut off to their homes.”

The NAACP LDF particularly objects to the practice of converting unpaid water bills into tax liens on customers' properties, placing them at risk of foreclosure. Holmes said this type of discrimination is illegal under the federal Fair Housing Act.

“More than 60 percent of all the water liens placed by Cleveland Water are in majority black areas,” Holmes said. “So black communities are really bearing the brunt of this policy.”

According to the release, the NAACP LDF is representing five individual homeowners and several proposed classes in the lawsuit. Albert Pickett, one of the plaintiffs, has lived without water in his home for six years.

“Cleveland Water says I owe them thousands of dollars even though my water was shut off in 2013,” Pickett said in a NAACP LDF press release Wednesday. “I have not been given an opportunity to challenge these charges.”

In October 2019, Pickett’s home was severely damaged in a house fire, which he believes he could have extinguished if he had a water connection.

The City of Cleveland has not been formally served and thus cannot comment, Mayor Frank Jackson’s spokeswoman, Latoya Hunter, told ideastream via email Thursday.