Flint water crisis: Difference of 1000 days

FLINT, Mich. (WNEM) - One toddler, Sincere, became the poster child for the Flint water crisis when Time Magazine put him on its cover.

His mom moved when the problems with the contaminated water overwhelmed them.

“Even out here we have bottled water. We have a filter on our sink. We don’t know. We don’t want to go through what we went through before,” said Ariana Hawk, Sincere’s mom.

She is still using filters in her temporary home in Swartz Creek. Her Flint home sits empty, only filled with hope that one day its occupants will return.

“We moved to help Sincere out and so my other kids wouldn’t have to bathe in bottled water, cooking with bottled water, brushing teeth with the bottled water,” Hawk said.

She said using bottled water is just an inconvenience compared to what the water from the tap did to her son.

“He doesn’t have to take steroids that much. He doesn’t have to use ointments. His skin smooth compared to what it was 1000 days ago - rough, scaly, blistering,” Hawk said.

Sincere is almost unrecognizable to the child gracing the February 2016 cover of Time Magazine. He is energetic and loves to laugh.

“He’s not scared of the water as he once was when in Flint. I’ve seen a lot in Sincere change since we’ve been out here,” Hawk said.

The family is ready to wash their hands of their current living situation in Hawk’s mom’s apartment. They believe there is an end in sight and they will eventually move home to Flint.

“I thought at least by last year they would have some type of results. Not in a million years did I think we would be going through the water crisis 1,000 days later,” Hawk said.