THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

When you can't afford to get out of town? Such is the position that so many of the residents of Flint, Michigan find themselves in now. With toxic levels of lead, how can you possibly sell your house? And low income renters wonder how they could ever afford it.

Because the drinking water flowing from their pipes is contaminated, tens of thousands of people here may have been exposed to lead and other toxic chemicals. Untold numbers of them are desperate to leave. But few see a way to pick up and move to a place where the water that flows from the taps is clean and safe.

Homeowners have little hope that they will be able to sell. Renters, like Mr. White, who pays $450 a month for a three-bedroom house, worry about the costs of moving and the difficulties of picking up and starting over in a new place.

“It costs money to move,” said Sandra Ballard, a 62-year-old retiree who lives on the impoverished north side of Flint. She said she struggled to pay her $350 a month rent for a three-bedroom apartment with a patched ceiling. “You’ve got to put first and last month’s rent down. Believe me, I wish I could get out of here.”

People in poor and crime-ridden pockets of cities like Detroit and Baltimore often share the sense of being trapped because of market forces and limited resources. But the people of Flint have a special urgency about leaving.

Because of the health crisis stemming from their tainted water, they spend their days dealing with the consequences.

They use bottled water for drinking, washing their hands and preparing food. In between, they shuttle children to pediatricians for blood tests, lug bottled water home from firehouses and install and change water filters on their home faucets. (Even so, city and state officials warned Friday that lead levels were still so high in some homes that the filters might not be strong enough to be effective.)

Yet many people here have no alternative but to stay.

“I couldn’t rent out my house now if I wanted to,” said Joyce Cruz, 35, a homeowner and the mother of five. “Who would want to move to Flint?”

Gov. Snyder has effectively stolen the equity of every homeowner in Flint and turned it into a lead tainted ghetto. In a perfect world, Gov. Snyder would move the Michigan governors office and the legislature to Flint until the problem is removed. But Gov. Snyder is a Republican, the only thing perfect in his world are his asshole ideas.