Since last year, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has been turning off water at the homes of customers behind on their bills. The shut-off campaign comes...[after] Detroit...became the largest American city to ever file for bankruptcy last summer. The value of the bonds associated with the water department’s debt...constitutes almost one-third of the amount estimated to have pushed Detroit into bankruptcy. Some old-age pensioners, not knowing where to turn after their taps were closed off, have gone without running water for almost a year. The campaign to crack down on overdue bills...has been described...as an effort, pushed by the city’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to...prep the public entity for privatization...Darryl Latimer, the deputy director of the water department...says...[most] of the department’s customers show up to pay their bills...after being shut off...Latimer appears to take this as proof that customers can afford to pay, but are just being irresponsible...But the stories of residents left without water suggest a scenario that’s less clear-cut...Some...are afraid child-protective services may intervene, as a lack of running water is grounds for social services to immediately take children out of parents’ care...The human right to water does not imply that it should be available for free, says Sharmila Murthy, an associate professor of law at Suffolk University and an associate fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. “The key element here is affordability,” she says... “Water is not affordable if the person must give up another human right to pay for water and sanitation services—medicines and health-care costs, food, rent, school fees,” says Patricia Jones, a senior program leader at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee