Detroit Preparing to Foreclose on 142,000 (One Fifth) Residents By 2016

Detroit Preparing to Foreclose on 142,000 Residents By 2016. One-Fifth of Detroit's Population

Many families could stay put for just a few hundred dollars, if only they knew how to work the system but One-Fifth of Detroit's Population Could Lose Their Homes. Starting yesterday, final bids are closing on 100 houses every 15 minutes.

This year in Detroit, there have been 22,000 foreclosures on properties whose owners failed to pay property taxes three years in a row. Of those, 10,000 are estimated to be occupied, meaning this year's foreclosures are set to oust about 27,000 Detroiters from their homes.

That’s a large number in a dwindling city with fewer than 700,000 residents, but the figures are set to get even worse. In the next couple of months, Wayne County’s treasurer will be serving foreclosure notices on 110,000 more properties, 85,000 of which are in Detroit, according to its chief deputy treasurer David Szymanski. With half of those Detroit properties estimated to be occupied, this means a further 115,000 Detroiters might lose their homes next year.

In a city supposedly trying to attract residents rather than lose them, this means a potential 142,000 Detroiters—one-fifth of the city’s population—will be shown the door within the next year and a half. The city has yet to announce plans for accommodating those who get evicted.
www.theatlantic.com...

It's this part that really gets me tho:

Perhaps because so many believe that poor people are ill-equipped to be homeowners, very few people losing their homes to foreclosure have been informed that they can re-buy their homes. A given house’s unpaid property taxes can amount to thousands of dollars, yet many homeowners aren’t aware that they could erase their debts and regain ownership by bidding on their own homes for prices as low as $500.

When Michele Oberholtzer, a Detroit-based writer and engineer, surveyed a thousand foreclosed properties on a private contract last month, she noticed that few of the residents knew about their options. She says around 90 percent of the people she spoke with were either unaware of the auction’s existence or of their ability to at least try to buy back their foreclosed houses, canceled of all debt. Community-based organizations are doing as much as they can to redress this information gap, but resources are limited.

So a first round of auctions has already put people in the streets because of liens that they can't afford even if they bought back their houses at $500. But the second round of which most are unaware of is quite Different...Lien Free!

The question arises as to why so many residents have not been made aware of such a plan. Low income thus undesirable? Skin color? YES I went there because someone has to as it is a player in the game:

Properties for sale in the Wayne County auction went up in a first round in September for the total cost of taxes and liens owed. The second October round irreversibly expunges all debt and sells houses at a starting bid of $500, covering Wayne County’s estimated administrative costs for one house. The second round of the auction started on October 9 and runs through October 28, but its most heated days are in its final week. Starting yesterday, final bids are closing on 100 houses every 15 minutes.

A Civil Rights Lawyer puts it out there quite clearly:

For Harris, the civil-rights law professor at UCLA, pushing residents out and blaming their lack of ability to pay is ignoring the larger, structural issue of racial discrimination. “I do want to resist the notion that this is about individual behavior of individual Detroiters when what’s been happening in the city is a kind of slow hollowing out for the purposes of a re-takeover,” Harris says.

“They have no intention of locking the gates on Detroit and walking away. That is not what is happening here. What is happening is a kind of clearing on the ground for its reconstitution.”

One writer over at the Activist Post puts it this way:

As Detroit seeks to leave bankruptcy behind and get back on its feet—ramping up development with construction of a light rail and a new hockey arena that will cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars—it is simultaneously bearing witness to a process that could evict up to 142,000 of its residents, many of whom are too poor to pay their property taxes.

Somehow I don’t think this is going to end well for the city. I don’t think they’re going to be able oust 142,000 of their poorest and most desperate residents. These people don’t have anything left to lose, and there aren’t enough cops to evict them at gunpoint. If this comes to a head, then the residents of Detroit should prepare themselves for the next major American riot.
www.activistpost.com...

Will this be the next major American riot? Well, if this isn't the fuse, nothing is IMO.

How are property taxes even legal?

It’s the idea that you have to pay your local government, year after year for the rest of your life, for something you’ve already paid in full. It’s complete nonsense. It calls into question whether you even own your property in the first place. After all, do you really own it if you have to keep paying for it? It seems to closely resemble the medieval system of serfdom.

The peasants didn’t own the land they worked on. They had to pay a yearly fee for the right to work that land, which went towards the nobles and knights. It was protection money. So at least they had the benefit of protection from the warrior class in those societies. Can you say the same of your local police? www.activistpost.com...

In reality, you don’t “own” your house or the land it sits on. You simply rent it even after you have paid the banks. It's just that you now have a Different boss who can kick you out for not paying rent...the rent that you MUST pay forever.

So if the plan goes ahead and it looks like it will because it's already in the works...What happens to the 142,000 new homeless? The streets? Nope, won't be allowed. My guess...FEMA camps. Troll all you want about FEMA camps but they DO exist and are the only logical outcome I can see.

When a wave of foreclosures hit the city a decade ago, the United Community Housing Coalition was able to prevent most evictions, but there are too many foreclosures now for the organization to fight all of them.

So ATS...What now?

Many will say "I Don't live there" or "I Don't know them" ...But they ARE your fellow citizens right? If it can happen to them, why not you? Because I have a feeling that it's closer to you than you think.

Peace

a reply to: jude11

Wasn't Detroit going bankrupt?

I think the residents should foreclose on the city!

originally posted by: AnteBellum
a reply to: jude11

Wasn't Detroit going bankrupt?

I think the residents should foreclose on the city!

It was floated around for awhile.

Peace

originally posted by: AnteBellum
a reply to: jude11

Wasn't Detroit going bankrupt?

I think the residents should foreclose on the city!

They've been there done that....

Detroit bankruptcy time line

There are conspiracy theories.

The will simply become renters.

They let the poor buy when the prices were high and then the rich step in and buy when the prices low.

Those 142,000 homes must contain an average of four per building anyways....
Arm those guys and wed have half a million pissed off former owners of the American dream....what an army!
Ah the days when the locals met the Redcoats with steel and firey determination.....
America.....What happened...?

originally posted by: jude11
A Civil Rights Lawyer puts it out there quite clearly:

For Harris, the civil-rights law professor at UCLA, pushing residents out and blaming their lack of ability to pay is ignoring the larger, structural issue of racial discrimination. “I do want to resist the notion that this is about individual behavior of individual Detroiters when what’s been happening in the city is a kind of slow hollowing out for the purposes of a re-takeover,” Harris says.

My property tax for 2013 was $790. That is a significant amount of money IMO, but I made sacrifices and paid it. Where's my pity party?

Oh, wait... I'm white, so nobody cares.

Once again we're seeing the definition of racism being redefined to include holding individuals responsible for the piece of dirt they consciously decided to purchase. It's pathetic that the overwhelming majority of minorities have been neutered and have devolved in to ignorant masses that sit, with their mouths agape waiting on the rain to quench their thirst.

They also directly responsible for and have no one to blame but themselves for the failings of their school districts (where the vast majority of property tax dollars are spent).

Telling people that they are victims, rather than telling them flatly that their "culture" is to blame for their ills has done them no favors.

a reply to: stirling

America.....What happened...?

tv,flouride,HFCS and macdonalds....

to the OP...governments really need to start working for the people this kind of garbage over property taxes needs to stop...we are all part of the human race after all

So how are these auctions conducted...is it in a fair and transparent manner and public....or is it done in some dusty office at city hall with very few bidders. I'm interested because the system is very different down here in New Zealand.

As far as I know, not paying property taxes will eventually lead to foreclosure anywhere in the country, not just in Detroit.
I have to believe there are payment plans and other workable options available if people would take it upon themselves to look.

I can already hear them saying it is the gov'ts fault for not telling them there were options and for letting them go 3 years without paying.

Just like with the water shutoffs for non-payment. Was the govts fault for letting their bills get so high.

jeez 100,000 homeowners not paying taxes adds up fast. At just 100 bucks thats 10 million a year, for 3 years. You think a city going into bankruptcy a few years ago couldn't have used that money, and thats at just $100 a year, I bet they are higher than that.

a reply to: jude11

Progressive logic hard at work again I see OP.........Taxes pay for streets,schools,local government. How on earth can you feel these people should get a free pass.



I also notice you played the race card.........The only chains I see are self imposed out of stupidity,laziness and apathy. If you do not pay you electric bill should they just give you a pass also. What about car payments and mortgage payments should that also be free OP.


I have a idea for all these people from Detroit playing the system............Get of your lazy butt and get a job.

I say we turn at least portions of Detroit into some kind of experimental, future city....

Or turn it all into the set for one amazing reality series....pm me for details on how ATS can buy a neighborhood, blow it up and make millions!

I don't know who gave out the information but you cannot bid on your own foreclosed home in Michigan. Thats how the system works. And the homes sold you have to pay the back taxes it's the law not to mention they cannot be sold below fair market value. Once again the law. I've bought and flipped many houses here. If they are 5k$ behind the county and state will get their 5k$

We knew this was coming yet nothing was done.
Three months ago A thread was posted stating water was being cut to around 150,000 residents who couldnt keep up with utility fees:
Cheers to.
gladtobehere
US crumbling. Detroit shuts off water to residents. UN asked to help.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

In this thread i stated the U.S. would face its own refugee chrisis of epic proportion within 18 months if the City of Detroits problems were left unchecked, and it looks, to me at least, this seems to be it's fate.

This problem has gone far beyond the short sightedness of calling the populace lazy,stupid or apathetic. If any one body could be condemned of the above terminology's it is the establishment for sailing this once fine city into the iceburg it has and then letting its people go down with the ship.

www.zerohedge.com...

25 Facts About The Fall Of Detroit That Will Leave You Shaking Your Head

It is so sad to watch one of America's greatest cities die a horrible death. Once upon a time, the city of Detroit was a teeming metropolis of 1.8 million people and it had the highest per capita income in the United States. Now it is a rotting, decaying hellhole of about 700,000 people that the rest of the world makes jokes about. On Thursday, we learned that the decision had been made for the city of Detroit to formally file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. It was going to be the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States by far, but on Friday it was stopped at least temporarily by an Ingham County judge.

How are property taxes even legal? 


Think of taxes like this. .....
Your says he needs 100 bucks to go on a field trip, it really only costs 10 bucks but he pays for 5 of his friends to go too and when they are on the field trip he buys lunch for a bunch of homeless people. That's what happens with our tax dollars. You see them putting up new guard rails on the highway every year just to spend that money so they can get those taxes next year.

a reply to: jude11

It's not about race. It's about politics and bad policy in a depressed economy. No one should lose their home for failing to pay property taxes. The issue should be dealt with on a case by case basis.

originally posted by: SubTruth
a reply to: jude11

Progressive logic hard at work again I see OP.........Taxes pay for streets,schools,local government. How on earth can you feel these people should get a free pass.

Yes and naturally no one is going to tell them that they can cycle in rinse out every three years at around 500$ or so. LOL

originally posted by: Spruce
a reply to: jude11

It's not about race. It's about politics and bad policy in a depressed economy. No one should lose their home for failing to pay property taxes. The issue should be dealt with on a case by case basis.

This sounds like a tax revolt.

By the way are not property taxes taken out of the mortgage payment every month? I ask who would let a paid for home go on the block for taxes anyway? This is all very strange.

a reply to: PLAYERONE01


This is the big façade falling off Johnsons Great Society Theater. A Theater that only looked good when it was surrounded by the fruits of industry.

My buddy grew up on the Eastside and we were on Google Earth street view and it was like a rural area with acres of trees and brush, no chain link fencing (probably got scrapped), a few houses per block, some empty, some occupied. Schools gone, stores gone, he couldn't recognize the area anymore. His house was an empty overgrown lot now.

Once these foreclosed houses are empty, they get stripped down, vandalized, set on fire, boarded up, then finally demolished, leaving the land to go back to nature. I bet there are packs of wild dogs and lots of alley cats in addition to the regular vermin (human vermin included) in those leveled neighborhoods.

For such a small tax base already, it seems like they would need to develop the area quickly to keep the revenue flowing. Do the banks pay property taxes after foreclosure? If so, then I can see the government's motivation in evicting. Somehow I think the banks are getting a break compared to the original owners.