Here’s something to think about.

At last week’s city council hearing (blogged about here), Brooklyn’s Lewis Fidler (Democrat, 46^th district) proposed that the recent spike in water bill delinquencies could very well be related to the sub-prime lending crisis.

According to Fidler, the parts of NYC known to have high delinquency rates are also the parts of NYC hit hardest by the sub-prime lending crisis. Fidler’s point was something to the effect of “If a homeowner has the resources to pay only the mortgage or the water bill, I think we all know what the homeowner is going to choose to pay.”

What follows from Fidler’s observation is that the DEP’s insistence to keep raising rates will quickly exacerbate the effects of the sub-prime lending crisis, causing more and more foreclosures in NYC.