Most of $600 Million Settlement in Flint Water Crisis Will Go to Children

“For me, the settlement means we’re going to be OK,” Tiantha Williams said as she helped at a food and water distribution center at the Greater Holy Temple Church of God in Christ. “But it is upsetting that it’s going to take so long because I just want it to be over. You just get to a certain point where you just hate talking about it.”

Ms. Williams, 43, said that her 4-year-old son had experienced developmental delays with speech and toilet training, and that she feared that the water she drank while pregnant might have played a role. He was only 2.6 pounds at birth, she said, and struggled to survive.

The water lines in her home have been replaced, as have the lines in most homes in Flint, officials say. But Ms. Williams, like many people who live in Flint, continues to use bottled water for drinking and cooking. “I just don’t trust the water,” she said.

The water began turning strange colors and smelling odd in 2014, after the city switched residents’ water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The city, home to about 95,000 residents — 40 percent of whom fall below the federal poverty line — had fallen into fiscal distress. While under oversight by a state-appointed emergency manager sent to solve the city’s woes, Flint had switched its water supply to save money.