When I get to her house, her kitchen is full of people. Mark introduces us to one woman who’s been at the threat of foreclosure for years.Ĭynthia is the sort of person who calls you sweetie even if she’s only met you once and you’re there to interview her about her delinquent taxes. What they found was that hundreds of millions of dollars never should have been billed in the first place. Independent producer, Mark Bettencourt and the Detroit News analyze massive amounts of data to find out where all this tax debt is coming from. Caught in a cycle of debt, paying off old taxes, only at the cost of falling behind on new ones. Today, tens of thousands of Detroit homeowners are still feeling crushed by the tax debt they owe the government. The impact of that looks a lot like what African-American homeowners have been experiencing throughout the country’s history, a systematic and catastrophic draining of wealth, and it all started with an epic level of tax delinquency in the wake of the mortgage crisis. Homes in majority black neighborhoods have been 10 times more likely to be at risk of tax foreclosure than those in other neighborhoods. A third of the properties in the City have been tax foreclosed since 2008. It’s hard to imagine if you’re not from Detroit, but here tax foreclosure is on everybody’s mind. Safe by paying $750 up front and $211 a month for five years. My payment plan a month would just be like $211, so it saves my home for today by beating the deadline by 4:30 today. The Latifa owes more than $10,000 in back taxes. People can pay what they owe in full or they can get on a payment plan that breaks their debt into monthly payments. If you make your payment at the kiosk, you probably will not be foreclosed. We are going to foreclose those properties tomorrow. They’ve come here because they have unpaid property tax bills that are at least three years old, which means the County can foreclose on their properties and sell them at an auction. Like Detroit, the ground is mostly African-American. The fire marshal only allows a certain amount of people on the floor at a time.Ī couple of hundred people are waiting in this giant ballroom. Just to let you know why everybody is up here right now. Every summer there’s a mad scramble at the Wayne County treasurer’s office in downtown Detroit. Please be aware that the official record for Reveal’s radio stories is the audio.įrom the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. Reveal transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. Our story on tax foreclosures was produced with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, Democracy Fund, and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. Support for Reveal is provided by the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. Our executive producer is Kevin Sullivan. Our sound design team is Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda, who had help from Najib Aminy and Amy Mostafa. Our production manager is Mwende Hinojosa. Special thanks to Sarah Alvarez, Imani Mixon, The Detroit News, Attom Data Solutions, Loveland Technologies, Data Driven Detroit and Reveal’s Emmanuel Martinez This show was edited by Phyllis Fletcher and reported by Mark Betancourt and Outlier Media’s Katlyn Alo. This week’s show had editorial guidance from Deborah George, Jen Chien and Stan Alcorn. Host Al Letson talks to him about the housing crisis and whether the city has done enough to help homeowners. ![]() Six years ago, he was the long-shot candidate, who won with support from the business community. Outlier Media’s Katlyn Alo investigates what happens when the bad neighbor next door is the government.įinally, we speak to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. Next, we look at what happens to homeowners when their neighbors’ homes are foreclosed, turning neighborhoods into ghost towns largely owned by the city. They found that hundreds of millions of dollars never should have been billed to Detroiters in the first place. Independent producer Mark Betancourt and The Detroit News analyzed massive amounts of data to find out where all this tax debt came from. And homes in majority-black neighborhoods are 10 times more likely to be at risk of tax foreclosure than those in other neighborhoods. Since 2008, one-third of properties in the city have been tax foreclosed. ![]() When the Great Recession walloped Detroit, thousands of people fell behind on property taxes and lost their homes.
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