A growing number of Flint water customers are being told to pay past due bills, or risk having their service shut off.
The city is under pressure to get more water customers to pay up now that state subsidies have ended and the city faces mounting costs.
A few weeks ago, the city informed 18 delinquent customers that if they didn’t pay up, their water would be cut off. According to city spokeswoman Kristin Moore, several paid the minimum amount due to keep their water service on. But the rest will start losing their service next week.
Thursday, the city of Flint added 31 additional residential customers to the shutoff list. Those customers will need to bring their accounts current, or they will face shutoffs in a few weeks.
The city is going after residential customers that haven’t paid their water or sewer bills in more than a year, and have racked up past due accounts in the thousands of dollars.
Many Flint residents say they can’t afford to pay their water bills. Others say they don’t want to pay for water they do not believe is safe to drink.
Even with recently-ended state subsidies, only about 55% of Flint residential water and sewer customers were current on their bills.
April will be the first month without the state credit.
