Property damages settlement payments to victims of the Flint Water crisis not to exceed $1,000
by Ebony JJ Cuirry
Flint’s water crisis settlement has started paying out claims. Administrators have approved nearly 26,000 claims for a share of the fund. The payment portal opened Dec. 12 for the first wave of about 7,000 residential property damage claims. The settlement website reported 2,854 payments issued as of the evening of Dec. 23.
This first round covers property damage only. Award Notices for that batch were mailed the week of Dec. 8. Claimants use the notice and a unique ID to select a payment method through the portal.
The settlement site lists payment options that include direct deposit and transfers through Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal. People who choose a check must pick it up in person at the distribution center on Clio Road in Flint.
Property damage awards are capped at $1,000 per parcel. The settlement rules also require splitting the payment when more than one approved claimant is tied to the same property.
Payments for health claims have not started yet. Those future payments are expected to cover eligible injuries for adults and children, which make up most of the settlement’s categories and dollars.
The official settlement site lists these allocations: 64.5% for children who were 6 and under during the crisis, 10% for children ages 7–11, 5% for children ages 12–17, 15% for adults with eligible injury, 3% for residential property damage claims, and 0.5% for business loss claims. Public health guidance helps explain that math. CDC materials state no safe blood lead level has been identified for children, and lead exposure is linked to developmental delays and learning and behavioral issues.
A full understanding of these payments requires a hard look back at how Flint got here.
The water crisis began after a decision to change the city’s drinking water source in April 2014, moving from Great Lakes water supplied through Detroit to the Flint River without necessary corrosion control treatment, according to peer-reviewed public health research. Corrosive water can strip protective scaling from aging pipes and plumbing. Lead can then leach into water that families use for drinking, cooking, and mixing formula. Another peer-reviewed analysis described the absence of a corrosion-control plan and operational failures tied to the system during this period.
A governor-appointed task force later put responsibility and clarity into plain language. The Flint Water Advisory Task Force’s final report stated “there was and remains no justification” for Michigan’s environmental agency not requiring corrosion control treatment for the switch to the Flint River.
The same report also labeled the crisis a “clear case of environmental injustice.”
Flint reconnected to Detroit’s water system on Oct. 16, 2015, after residents’ complaints and independent testing intensified public pressure. Damage did not disappear the moment the source changed back. Distrust continued. Residents kept asking a basic question: who pays for what happened, and when.
Court timelines stretched that wait. Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services states a federal judge granted final approval of a partial settlement on March 3, 2022, with a deadline of June 30, 2022 for submitting claim forms and documentation. MDHHS also notes the settlement covers exposure and use of water from the Flint Water Treatment Plant during a time period that includes April 25, 2014 through Nov. 16, 2020.
Race and place remain central to why this story stays raw.
U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts lists Flint’s population as 56.7% Black alone. That reality sits next to the political structure that shaped the crisis, including emergency management and cost-cutting choices that residents did not control.
The settlement’s next phase matters for health claims, especially for families raising children who lived through the crisis during their earliest years. Flint has never been only about pipes. Flint is about governance and the cost of treating a majority-Black city as expendable. The checks starting to move at the end of 2025 do not rewrite that history. They sit inside it.
