Wayne County suspended tax foreclosures this year at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Housing activists want that policy to continue.
Bernadette Atuahene leads the Coalition for Property Tax Justice. She says one in four Detroit properties have been subject to tax foreclosure since the Great Recession.
“40% of Detroiters live below the poverty line and were not supposed to be paying these property taxes in the first place,” said Atuahene.
Detroit resident Sonja Bonnet lost her home to foreclosure. She says many residents like her were over-taxed over the last decade.
“This didn’t just happen to me," says Bonnet. "This happened to about 96,000 Detroit homeowners in an 82% Black city.”
Beyond the covid emergency the coalition wants to see an end to owner-occupied foreclosures in Detroit until the problem of systemic property tax over-assessment is corrected.