Isaiah Oliver carefully parks his car in the crumbling parking lot of North Flint’s Greater Holy Temple Church. The lot at the church was meant for parishioners coming to worship, not 18-wheelers carrying pallets of bottled water.
But as the city grapples with its water crisis, the church has been one of the main distribution hubs for donated water, food, clothing, and other essential items. That disaster exposed thousands to dangerously high levels of lead in 2014 when an emergency manager switched the city’s water source to save money. Officials failed to treat the water, a step that would have prevented pipe corrosion.
