WASHINGTON — Thousands of Flint, Mich., residents have been warned they could lose their homes if they don’t pay outstanding water bills — even as the city has just begun replacing lead-tainted pipes after a contamination crisis linked to a dozen deaths.
Warning letters were mailed to 8,002 residents in April, according to the city, a few weeks after state officials ended a program that was paying the majority of their water bills.
But many Flint residents still don’t trust their taps. They’re lining up for free bottled water or installing city-recommended filters after revelations in 2014 and 2015 that dangerous levels of lead had leached into the system while officials tried to cut costs.
‘‘I’m not going to give them one penny,’’ a resident who owed $822.62 told the Toronto Star in March, before letters warning of tax liens were mailed out.
More than $5.8 million in water and sewer charges need to be collected, according to the city. The letters give residents with half a year or more of unpaid bills a month to pay up or face possible foreclosure.
The city called the 8,000 letters ‘‘routine’’ — though no one got one last year, in the aftermath of the lead-poisoning crisis.
In 2014, a state-appointed manager switched Flint’s water supply from a lake to the Flint River. More than a dozen state and local officials have since been charged with crimes after corrosion from the new water source allowed rust, iron, and lead into the water supply. They’re accused of ignoring warnings and knowingly putting the city’s 95,000 residents in danger.
‘‘The catastrophe exposed thousands of children to high levels of lead, which can cause long-term physical damage and mental impairment,’’ Brady Dennis wrote in the Post.
The city has since started paying Detroit for tap water, and earlier this year state officials said lead in the water had fallen to safer levels.
But in March, resident Melissa Mays and other plaintiffs in a lawsuit forced the city to begin replacing 18,000 lead-tainted pipes.
Under the settlement, the state must also keep distributing free bottled water to residents who want it, and ensure every home has a working water filter.
But the same month, the state ended a crisis-era program that paid 65 percent of residents’ water bills.
