Guest Column by Colleen Harrison

Ever since I graduated high school in 2008, I haven’t lived in the same place for more than three years at a time. One of the places I managed to stay the longest was in the industrial part of Michigan.

When I first moved to Michigan, I was a photo intern for the Saginaw News and its online equivalent, mlive.com. That Saginaw newspaper has a number of sister papers, one of which is the Flint Journal out of Flint, Michigan.

Flint is only about 20 minutes away from Saginaw, so while I wasn’t a full-time intern for the Journal, I did work for them from time to time when our coverage areas overlapped — similar to how the Albert Lea Tribune and the Austin Daily Herald sometimes collaborate.

Flint and Saginaw, along with Detroit and Pontiac, Michigan, were all once meccas of industrial and factory job opportunities, mostly due to much of the auto industry being based out of those four cities. As more and more of the auto industry became outsourced or scaled back in those cities, unemployment rates grew — as did crime and poverty.

During my time in the Saginaw and Flint areas, both of those cities were considered to be the most violent cities in America for their populations — Flint being a city of roughly 100,000 and Saginaw about 50,000 — according to FBI statistics. Both have since dropped down in the list, but are still in the top 10.

I didn’t tell my mom about the crime rate or the statistics when I moved to Saginaw, but, like most mothers, she found out anyway. She was not thrilled.

Despite her reservations and despite what Saginaw and Flint looked like on paper, I absolutely loved living and working in that area. There’s something about the people who continue to live and work in a community that has been through so much that just resonates with me. Maybe that comes from growing up in the Cleveland area of Ohio, which has also seen the affects of lost industry, or maybe I’m just a sucker for a good underdog story.

Either way, the people I got to know through being in that community taught me a lot and put so much into perspective. Human beings can go through and endure so much and still come out the other side. While working for the News, I saw people donate their time, money and resources to do things like help feed and clothe the homeless, or paint murals over blighted buildings and host all-night neighborhood watches to minimize crime. Others pushed fundraisers to help inner city students be able to participate in sports, music and other after-school activities that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

Now, though, Flint is going through something no city in modern-day America should have to endure.

The Journal has been covering the water crisis in Flint ever since the city switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014. In fall 2015, a university researcher and local doctor issued warnings about the lead levels in the water, and released that lead levels in children had spiked since the water switch.

Since then there has been finger-pointing, grandstanding, protesting and celebrities putting their two cents in, amongst other attention-deflecting or attention-grabbing shenanigans. What hasn’t been provided, though, is answers.

Flint deserves answers, and its people deserve to see those responsible held accountable.

As a previous Journal editorial said, “Flint water has poisoned more than just its children. It’s poisoned the citizenry’s faith in government, which is supposed to provide safe drinking water, one of life’s most basic essentials.”

 

Colleen Harrison is the Tribune’s photo editor. She can be reached at colleen.harrison@albertleatribune.com.