Detroit homeowners are expected to get half-a-billion dollars – some of which will go toward residential property tax relief. The donation comes from the Gilbert Family Foundation and the Rocket Community Fund. Officials with the non-profits say the initial pledge is expected to help 20-thousand households this year --- The homeowners have an average tax debt of 25-hundred dollars. Wayne County Executive Warren Evans says the donation will help address the region’s housing crisis.
“You have ongoing foreclosures and then you have the population loss that comes from the foreclosures," said Evans. "You have reduction in property values of the surrounding properties and the cycle just gets worse and worse.”
Evans says in the years since the Great Recession, about one in four homes in Detroit were foreclosed upon. After the process was paused at the onset of the pandemic, foreclosures in Wayne County are expected to resume later this year