Wednesday, September 12, 2018 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, September 12, 2018 // The Statement 
5B

In a foreclosure crisis, Detroit residents 

fight to remain in their homes

by Andrea Pérez, Statement Correspondent

I

n late August, Michael Andrews 
learned his Southwest Detroit 
home was in foreclosure. It came 
into his family’s possession in 

1963, but falling on hard times during the 
2007 recession made it difficult to keep 
up with his property taxes. The city’s 
systematically flawed practices have fur-
ther created and perpetuated an oppres-
sive system nearly impossible for at-risk 
residents to escape.

A yellow bag appeared on Andrews’ 

door twice in the past year. He recog-
nized that as an obvious sign of fore-
closure, but the following notifications 
of the status of the home were ambigu-
ous and easy to ignore. His story isn’t 
uncommon. Yellow paper bags appear on 
residents’ front doors and mail is sent to 
their address, but many don’t compre-
hend the severity of their situation due to 
the legal jargon and confusing format of 
the notifications.

It wasn’t until a United Community 

Housing Coalition volunteer came to his 
house that he realized how dire his situ-
ation was.

“I’m looking at (the notices) and it was 

the first time I sat down to read them,” 
Andrews said. “I started to read them 

and I was like I seen October you know 
and that’s how they do it in bold, so it 
makes you think you have until Octo-
ber. I’m looking at the papers then I read 
down below in the writing and I’m like 
‘Oh wow.’ You’re right. I got to get down 
here and do something.”

However, having lived in Detroit for 

40 years, Andrews is committed to sav-
ing his family home.He sits in counseling 
appointments with UCHC to see if there 
is any possibility that he might keep his 
home. When confronted with the idea 
that he might be evicted, Andrews was 
shock.

“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” 

Andrews says. “As long as I’ve been there, 
I have no idea what I would do. I pretty 
much lost all my family. I’m just lost for 
words because I’ve never been in this 
situation.”
I

n the past few years, leaders of 
the City of Detroit have made 
countless 
headlines 
proclaim-

ing the city’s so-called comeback. They 
point to the end of state oversight of the 
city’s finances, the new Little Caesars 
Arena, Ford’s Motor Co.’s purchase of the 
Michigan Central Station and new con-
struction of homes and office buildings 

around downtown and midtown as evi-
dence of the city’s resurgence. However, 
the revitalization of these areas contrasts 
with the reality of other city neighbor-
hoods. Far from downtown, trash builds 
on corners, windows are boarded up, 
streets remain dark through the hours of 
the night and residents are being pushed 
out from their homes by a tax foreclosure 
process that over assesses the tax burden 
for some of the city’s most vulnerable 
residents.

According to Motor City Mapping, 

111,167 Detroit properties went up for 
foreclosure between 2002 and 2014. 
With Detroiters paying one of the high-
est property tax rates in Michigan and 
the second highest in the nation as of 
2016, it comes to no surprise that already 
steep taxes, coupled with an archaic tax 
assessment process and persistent pov-
erty lead to Detroit’s immense volume of 
tax foreclosures.

Filling a gap unserved by the city, com-

munity organizations, like the United 
Community Housing Coalition, have 
established programs to help thousands 
of Detroiters at risk of losing their homes 
to navigate the foreclosure process. Resi-
dents like Andrews use their services to 

stay informed about the 
status of their homes, 
keep 
up 
with 
their 

payment plans and in 
extreme cases, explore 
last resort options.
T

he sound of 
footsteps 
and shuffling 

papers can be heard 
from the elevator on 
the third floor of 2727 
Second Ave. in Mid-
town, 
where 
UCHC 

is housed. There is a 
glass door at the end 
of the hallway that dis-
plays their logo, and 
behind it, the hallway 
is filled with people 
waiting their turn for 
a word with the front 
desk. UCHC counseling 
hours for tax foreclo-
sure prevention started 
a few minutes prior, 
and everyone waiting 

is here because their homes are at risk 
of being taken away through formalities 
of a system encompassed by racism and 
bigotry.

The smell of a pot of coffee brewing 

and the scent of dusty filing cabinets lin-
gers in the air. The walls are clad with 
inspirational quotes, pictures and art 
from Black historical figures, but that is 

the last thing anyone was paying atten-
tion to. People sit, face between their 
knees, some cradling their children, 
with folders of paperwork in their hands. 
Every chair in the waiting room is taken, 
so people spill into the hall and take up 
some of the chairs against both sides of 
the wall. All the while UCHC staff runs 
in and out of the waiting room and main 
hallway, bringing people into individual 
counseling rooms.

Bustling mornings like this are com-

mon at UCHC. The organization has been 
committed to providing housing assis-
tance to low-income Detroiters since 

1973, and this year is no exception. Oper-
ating at near capacity, UCHC will save 
515 homes this year, including Andrews’, 
from being sold in the auction through 
their Right of Refusal Program.

The program permits at-risk Detroit 

residents, previous owners or renters 
alike, to stay in their homes. To do this, 
they evoke the Right of First Refusal in 
which the Wayne State Treasurer’s office 
is required to offer the homes to the right 
holder, which in this case would be the 
person occupying the home before it can 
open up a deal to other potential buyers.

Through buying the homes from the 

Wayne County Treasurer’s office before 
the bidding starts, UCHC is able to 
acquire them for an affordable price and 
offer their clients a fair payment plan. 
This way, the person who occupied the 
home before it was foreclosed is able to 
remain in the property, and even better 
yet, their tax bill starts anew.
A

s many as 25 percent of Detroit 
properties went into tax fore-
closure between 2011 and 2015. 

This crisis has affected the composition 
of neighborhoods, displaced families and 
changed the overarching atmosphere in 
the city as many houses lay unoccupied 
and blighted. The underlying drivers 
for these foreclosures are disputed, but 
prominent narratives don’t acknowledge 
the role of the city and treasurer’s office 
in enforcing laws that have long dispro-
portionately affected at-risk communi-
ties.

However, Bernadette Atuahene, a pro-

fessor at the Chicago-Kent College of 
Law, argues the city of Detroit is over-
assessing the value of these properties 
and foreclosing on them in an unconstitu-
tional manner.

According to the Michigan Constitu-

tion, properties need to be assessed annu-
ally and at no more than 50 percent of 
their market value. Atuahene found that 
Detroiters homes were assessed between 
53 and 84 percent of their value between 
2009 and 2015.

She suggests three reasons the city vio-

lated protocol. First, the assessor’s office 
could be too short-handed to actually 
assess the value of most properties in the 
city, and assumed property values were 
growing at an unrealistically high rate. 
Alternatively, many Detroit residents are 
unaware of the relevant regulations and 
therefore fail to hold the city government 
accountable. Finally, she raises the pos-
sibility the city found it easier to raise 
revenues by illegally assuming its taxable 
properties were more valuable than they 
actually were, rather than withstanding 
the political burden of raising tax rates.

“Given the (Detroit) property tax rate 

is already one of the highest in the nation, 
it may be challenging to get voters to 
approve a hike,” Atuhene’s article reads. 
“In contrast, Wayne County reimburses 
Detroit for any property tax revenue that 
it fails to collect; in exchange, the county 
receives the right to collect the revenues 

(with 
penalties 
and 

interests) and to con-
fiscate the home if pay-
ment is not forthcoming 
after three years of 
delinquency.”
S

imilar to any 
other property 
owner in Mich-

igan, Detroiters get two 
property tax bills in 
the year. One usually 
comes in the summer 
and the other in winter. 
The current year’s tax 
bills come in the from 
the city of Detroit, but 
delinquent taxes or back 
taxes that have accu-
mulated from previous 
years are billed by the 
Wayne County Treasur-
er’s office. When resi-
dents get a bill from the 
treasurer, it means that 
they are behind on their 
taxes and the 18 percent 
interest rate is already 
accruing.

When delinquent or back taxes accu-

mulate for three years, a yellow bag is 
dropped by the front door of the property 
by the treasurer, signaling that it is in the 
list of potential foreclosures. The county 
offers a few options for residents to pay 
back their delinquent taxes before their 
home goes into auction, and some of the 
most widely used are payment plans.

Payment plans like the Interest Reduc-

tion Stipulated Payment Agreement and 
the Stipulated Payment Agreement allow 
residents to pay back their delinquent 
taxes in split payments with the interest 
reduced to 6 percent. However, if resi-
dents fail to register for a payment plan 
or if they fall back on taxes again, their 
homes end up on auction.

As a last resort to collect the taxes owed 

to them by the properties, the Wayne 
State Treasurer’s office holds an annual 
auction for the purchase of foreclosed 
properties. This year, around 1,500 occu-
pied homes are up for foreclosure auction 
— including Andrews’s — yet this number 
is much lower than the 2015 peak when 
9,111 occupied homes went up for sale. 
Many of these homeowners or renters 
experience financial and emotional diffi-
culties that inhibit them from keeping up 
with their property taxes.

“Right now, I have been unemployed,” 

Andrews said. “With my background, 
stuff has been kind of hard to find 
employment so I do whatever I can on the 
side. Sparse side jobs. It’s tough just to 
make ends meet.”

Living below the poverty line and try-

ing to stay current on all bills on top of 
already high property taxes can take a toll 
on residents like Andrews, who makes 
less than $1,000 a month and would have 
to buy back his home for a minimum of 
$500.

“It’s stressful when, you know, you 

have a debt and they send it and let you 
know you’re always on it,” Andrews said. 
“After I get this situated I’m going to go 
file for bankruptcy for my first time. I’ve 
never done it before, but I’m going to go 
get that cleaned up and then I guess they 
will start over my credits.”

Another lifelong Detroiter, Wesley 

Mosley, is in a similar situation. She sits 
in the counseling room at UCHC, vis-
ibly pregnant and glowing with joy at the 
thought of finally having a girl after rais-
ing three boys. She tells the story of how 
she recently married her husband just 
released from prison, but the joy escapes 
her eyes when the topic reverts to her 
house. It is listed for the upcoming auc-
tion, as she has also found it hard to stay 
current with her taxes due to unemploy-
ment.

“I got a yellow bag on the door, and that 

was in 2016,” she says. “The house was 
still under my sister’s name, but she quit 
claim deed it to me because I had been 
there since 2011.”

The state of her neighborhood, like 

Andrews’s, has fluctuated throughout the 
years. Her elderly neighbors have man-
aged to stay, but most other houses either 
change owners often, are always on the 
verge of going vacant or lay blighted.

Despite these circumstances, she is 

also committed to saving her home. It is 
the first home she has owned and where 
she is raising her children. She has been 
living in it for many years and is still con-
stantly trying to turn her “house” into a 
“home.”

“Now I have just recently seen that over 

the summer people are coming to look at 
the homes that has been abandoned or 
what not,” she said. “I don’t want my home 
to be one of the homes that they look at, so 

I try to stay on top of everything. It’s just 
been hard being a single mother.”

Her home’s situation is why she is here, 

but the outcome is still uncertain.

“I wouldn’t have no choice but to work 

hard and try to get into another home, but 
it’s going to be hard,” she said. “I know 
I probably won’t get into no home until 
about March of next year or something 
like that when I have enough money saved 
up to have a down payment. I don’t want 
to have to go to no shelter with no new-
born baby and three kids.”

Andrews and Mosley are two of many 

Detroiters who utilize the services UCHC 
has to offer. They will likely get to stay in 
their homes, but unfortunately, going to 
a homeless shelter is a reality for others. 
Out of 1,500 occupied homes that were 
listed for the auction, UCHC was only 
able to buy back 515. Those residents did 
not have access to UCHC Andrews and 
Mosley were will likely be pushed out of 
their homes soon.

Even then, Andrews’s and Mosley’s 

fights aren’t over. Every six months, 
when their tax bills come and if they are 
still unable to pay them despite being 
informed and willing, they will be on the 
foreclosure track again. After a year, they 
might get another yellow bag on their 
doorstep, and three years after that they 
might find themselves at UCHC again, 
wondering what they can do to stay in 
their homes.

This cycle will continue to be a reality 

until the city and county make concrete 
efforts to reform how they assess proper-
ties values for taxes, and make genuine 
strides to inform the public about the 
status of their homes and options for pay-
ment. This cycle not stop until the gov-
ernment ceases profiting off the misery 
of its constituents.

Alexis Rankin/Daily 

The side of a building in Detroit, Michigan.

Alexis Rankin/Daily 

An abandoned house in Detroit, Michigan.

“Every six months, when 

their tax bills come and 

if they are still unable to 

pay them despite being 

informed and willing, 

they will be on the 

foreclosure track again. 

After a year, they might 

get another yellow bag on 

their doorstep, and three 

years after that they 

might find themselves at 

UCHC again, wondering 

what they can do to stay 

in their homes.”

