Almost half a million US households lack indoor plumbing: 'The conditions are inhumane'

[Judi Lynn]

Nina Lakhani in New York, Maanvi Singh in San Francisco and graphics by Rashida Kamal
Mon 27 Sep 2021 05.30 EDT

Renters and people of color are most likely to be living without water or flushing toilets in some of America’s wealthiest cities, new research shows



Yan Yu Lin and her seven-year-old daughter live in a tight studio in San Francisco’s Chinatown, in a century-old building where 60 or so residents on each floor share a bathroom.

Along the back wall of the room is a plastic potty – the kind designed for toilet training toddlers. The shared bathrooms are out of order so often, so rank and unhygienic, that Lin has her daughter use the plastic potty instead. “It’s safer,” she said.

This Dickensian-sounding living situation is more common in the US than most would think.

Almost half a million American households lack basic indoor plumbing, with renters and people of color in some of the country’s wealthiest and fastest growing cities most likely to be living without running water or flushing toilets, new research reveals.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/27/water-almost-half-million-us-households-lack-indoor-plumbing

[Throck]

1. So where are the city building inspectors?

In all the cities I've ever lived in there were annual inspections by the city building inspectors. If federal rent money assistance was involved then a federal HUD inspector dropped in. In addition there was an annual elevator inspection, boiler inspection and a fire marshall inspection. Are these inspectors blind? How does housing like this even exist? How did the renters even survive Covid with no hand sanitation?

[Duppers]

2. Great questions!

[Duppers]

3. This is shocking.

...the vast majority of unplumbed Americans are in fact found in urban areas, with one in three affected households living in just 15 cities, according to research by the Plumbing Poverty Project (PPP), a collaboration between King’s College London (KCL) and the University of Arizona.

Thanks for this info, Judi.