Non-profit group reaches out to residents to prevent foreclosure

Over the next few weeks, volunteers with the United Community Housing Coalition will be canvassing homes at risk at ending up on the annual Wayne County Tax Foreclosure auction.

Michele Oberholtzer from UCHC believes there are 17,000 occupied homes that are at risk for tax foreclosure this year. They’ll try to visit at least 5,000 of the homes that are in the highest priority before June 7, the deadline in which residents would have to either make a payment or develop a payment plan to prevent the foreclosure process.

Loveland Technologies has offered a proposal — that’s available to edit through Google Docs — on, “How To Stop Selling Thousands of Occupied Homes in Detroit to Strangers Over The Internet: A Common Sense Approach to The Wayne County Tax Foreclosure Auction.” One longer comment on the document has turned into a full Medium article offering one solution to the problem.

Loveland has a map of potential foreclosed properties with more detailed information here.

Loveland

Earlier this year, a group with no track record approached the city in an attempt to secure 2-4,000 homes in the annual tax auction. The city quickly said no thank you.

What much of this comes down to is that many low-income residents don’t know their options when it comes to foreclosure, and offering up bundles of homes often leads to more blight. We’d love to know your thoughts on the problem and possible solutions, Curbed readers.