{"id":151,"date":"2015-02-25T04:04:06","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T04:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/challengedetroit.org\/blog\/jessicawang\/?p=151"},"modified":"2015-02-25T04:04:06","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T04:04:06","slug":"the-other-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/the-other-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The “other” Detroit story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Detroit is in crisis, and not that many people are talking about it. The prevailing Detroit narrative we see day-to-day in the media is one of resurgence and revitalization, of development and growth – one that blatantly ignores the reality currently faced by\u00a093,733<\/strong>\u00a0native Detroiters. Their<\/em> Detroit is one\u00a0that may, due to unpaid property taxes, forcibly evict them from their homes by March 31st. That’s 93,733\u00a0Detroiters who may be kicked out of their homes, whether or not they have places to go. By March 31st. Of this year.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t heard too much about the tax foreclosure crisis up to this point, I wouldn’t be too surprised. Shinola’s Detroit-made watches and that new restaurant opening its doors in Corktown make far sexier headlines. Even Buzzfeed lists have gotten more publicity as of late.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the deal with this whole tax foreclosure thing? What qualifies it as a crisis<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Foreclosure<\/em>\u00a0is the process of taking possession of a mortgaged property as a result of the mortgagor’s failure to keep up mortgage payments (thank you, Google). On March 31st, Wayne County plans to\u00a0auction off properties that have 3+ years of unpaid property taxes. Currently, there are about 76,000 houses in Detroit that fall into this category. 35,000 of these are occupied by humans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When you first hear this, the situation may not sound so deplorable. You might\u00a0feel\u00a0the foreclosures\u00a0are justified; we can’t expect some to pay property tax and let others off the hook. However,\u00a0the stories of the Detroiters facing foreclosure\u00a0are far more complex, relatable and human in nature.<\/p>\n

\"Map<\/a>

Map showing Detroit properties at risk of foreclosure in 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

Some Detroiters may\u00a0rent from landlords who fail to pay city taxes<\/strong>. When the house is foreclosed and auctioned off, the landlord can easily rewind, re-buy the house\u00a0and repeat\u00a0the cycle. The tenant, forced to move out with no advance notice and often few options, may not\u00a0have it so easy. Other\u00a0Detroiters may\u00a0inherit houses<\/strong>\u00a0that, unbeknownst to them, have thousands upon thousands of tax dollars owed to the County. Others still may\u00a0purchase homes without knowing their properties are behind on taxes<\/strong>, sometimes at a rate worth several times the value of the house itself. The latter situation became all too common\u00a0after the housing crisis, when real estate investors bought up thousands of homes in Detroit for next to nothing, later selling them off to\u00a0residents\u00a0(often low-income, first-time buyers) who, having limited knowledge and experience with real estate, were oft caught\u00a0completely blind sighted.<\/p>\n

The tax foreclosure situation in Detroit is further compounded by 1) the\u00a018% interest rate<\/strong>\u00a0on past-due taxes (WHAT???) and 2)\u00a0the fact that,\u00a0according to Peter Moskowitz<\/a>, “properties in Detroit are often assessed by the city at values several dozen times their actual worth, reflecting what they might have sold for decades ago, before the city was in financial crisis”. That means, all too often, Detroiters end up owing taxes that are\u00a0<\/span>vastly disproportionate to the (low) market value of their homes.<\/span>\u00a0Moskowitz shares the story of Krystal Malone, an underemployed substitute teacher who\u00a0<\/span>owes the County $9,000 in backpay taxes on a house worth only $10,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly, there\u00a0are some systemic failures at play. The current system may easily (and sometimes unknowingly) trap Detroiters into a cycle of increasing debt and a future of impending foreclosure… as it has\u00a0done so already this year with 35,000 households.<\/p>\n

Among other (negative) consequences, the forcible eviction of 35,000 households\u00a0may\u00a0uproot families, hurt\u00a0communities, erase history and culture, decrease property value and perpetuate blight in a city already\u00a0struggling with\u00a0abandonment and instability. In the big picture, the short-term benefits of property taxes paid back to the County will surely be overshadowed\u00a0by the social, economic and political detriment of uprooting\u00a0one sixth of the city’s population.\u00a0Where will these families go? What will happen to their neighborhoods and communities? And who will prevent real estate investors from doing it (buying houses from the tax auction, evading taxes, and either selling or renting to innocent residents) again?<\/p>\n

The number of households currently facing foreclosure in Detroit is truly unprecedented (by comparison, a total of 89,000 homes were foreclosed over a ten-year span between 2003 and 2013). And yet, we aren’t really hearing about it. In 2003, Wayne County declared 1,800 foreclosures a\u00a0major crisis<\/strong><\/em>, but in 2015 Mayor Duggan failed to even mention this year’s foreclosures in his State of the City address.<\/p>\n

When we hear about Detroit in the news, we need to think\u00a0not only about who is being featured, but also consider who is being left out<\/em>. \u00a0While Detroit can be said to be making a\u00a0comeback, said “comeback” ought not be considered in the vacuum of Downtown and Midtown, but rather in the context of all 688,000-and-some of its residents.\u00a0The narratives we hear, and are sometimes a part of, do not always tell\u00a0the full story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Check\u00a0out<\/em>\u00a0Because Someone Lives Here<\/a><\/em>\u00a0to learn more about these Detroiters\u2019 stories and how you can help. Also,\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0is an interactive database by the New York Times that shows 43,634 properties that were on the brink of foreclosure in 2014.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Detroit is in crisis, and not that many people are talking about it. The prevailing Detroit narrative we see day-to-day in the media is one of resurgence and revitalization, of development and growth – one that blatantly ignores the reality currently faced by\u00a093,733\u00a0native Detroiters. Their Detroit is one\u00a0that may, due to unpaid property taxes, forcibly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}