We welcome Tiana Starks and Norrel Hemphill of We the People of Detroit

We the People of Detroit is dedicated to community coalition building and to the provision of resources that inform, train and mobilize the citizens of Detroit and beyond to improve their quality of life.

Tiana Starks

Tiana Starks serves as Director of Communications at We the People of Detroit (WPD), a community-based grassroots organization dedicated to building coalitions and advancing community-led solutions to water affordability and access, environmental justice, and other issues affecting communities in Detroit and across the nation.

In her role, Tiana leads communications strategy and narrative development to amplify community voices, strengthen public understanding of critical water and environmental justice issues, and support WPD’s advocacy and organizing efforts. She also plays a key role in coalition building, helping connect organizations, advocates, community members, and policymakers around shared priorities and collective action. Tiana brings a background in strategic communications, marketing, and entrepreneurship to her work, using storytelling and communications as tools to build power, strengthen partnerships, and advance systemic change.

Norrel Hemphill

Detroiter – by way of Flint, MI – Norrel Hemphill, Esq. is an environmental law and civil rights attorney at Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, advocating for access to drinking water. As a current member of the national Equal Justice Works Fellowship Program sponsored by American Tire Distributors, her efforts are dedicated to collaboratively creating policy and legislation that protects the human right to water through an income-based rate structure. Norrel supports various programs of grassroots organizations through her community outreach, community engagement, and volunteerism.

Attorney Hemphill advocates for water rights, water justice, and environmental justice at every level of government – local, state, federal, and international. She had the pleasure of contributing water affordability language to the 2021 proposed Detroit City Charter revision. Through that process, her commitment to the fight for water justice was solidified. For over a year, Attorney Hemphill, in coalition with the water warriors at We the People of Detroit, has worked extensively to provide guidance on the policy and implementation of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) Lifeline Plan – centering the needs of Community throughout the process. Her work with DWSD greatly influenced her to draft an ordinance which will codify an income-based rate structure for a water affordability plan into law for Detroit once adopted.

Across Michigan, she works with several convenings of water experts and utility leaders including the Michigan Water Table, the Western Lake Erie Basin Advisory Group, as well as a work group led by Sen. Stephanie Chang’s to create legislation for an income-based water rate program for the state of Michigan. Attorney Hemphill had the unique opportunity to serve on a national community task force, facilitated by international water lawyers at the Center for Water Security and Cooperation, which recommended guidelines for setting water affordability program standards to the federal government. She is currently a member of a statewide advisory group, led by Rep. Debbie Dingle in partnership with the University of Michigan and the People’s Water Board, which is drafting Michigan’s recommendations for the federal Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP). And earlier this year she, along with grassroots partners across the Great Lakes, presented to the International Joint Commission on water affordability and shutoffs.

Norrel continues to blend her erudite legal acumen with her lived experience to advocate for the codification of the human right to water, ensuring that low-income residents in Detroit and throughout Michigan always have access to safe, clean, and affordable drinking water. Attorney Hemphill is a graduate of Michigan State University and Thomas M. Cooley Law School. She is also an AmeriCorps alumnus and past legal intern with We the People of Detroit; where she volunteers with their water-centered youth leadership development program, We the Youth of Detroit. In her free time, Norrel enjoys getting lost in a book, writing poetry, creating delightfully delectable meals and desserts, and making memorable moments with her brilliant and remarkable daughter, Brooke.

Talking Water with We the People of Detroit