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'We needed creative ideas for how to take something completely horrific and find a silver lining,' Phillips said. Ted Phillips, the executive director of the UCHC, said more than 1,100 households had participated in Make It Home since it started the vast majority are still in those houses. The Make It Home program started in 2017, but new homeowners haven't been added in recent years because the pandemic halted most foreclosure action. 'We're not the foreclosing government unit, but we care very deeply that residents stay in their homes.' 'It's the best and highest opportunity to stay in the property,' Neblett said. Chelsea Neblett, the financial empowerment manager for Detroit's Department of Neighborhoods, said teams of people have been knocking on doors for more than a month to talk to residents about their options. The city of Detroit is spearheading a door-knocking program to let residents in foreclosed houses know they have the option to buy the homes they're living in, like Whitehead did. 'I'm OK with the stress of being a homeowner,' Whitehead said of paying off the house, 'because I'm a homeowner.' Now, the house is a place of relief for herself and her three kids. All told, she estimated she put $25,000 into the property.Ī self-described bad renter, Whitehead said the program's counselors never let her forget that she needed to make a payment. Whitehead, who teaches current events at a middle school and is getting her master's degree, said she paid about $4,000 in back taxes to acquire the house through the program. Residents interested in the program can call 31. If someone is interested in participating in Make It Home, the government takes the property from the treasurer, then works with United Community Housing Coalition to sell those houses to the residents for the cost of back taxes owed. The city has the right to pull houses that would otherwise be auctioned off in the fall. It works like this: People already living in foreclosed properties in the city of Detroit are asked by canvassers about their interest in and ability to buy the homes. Sabree said nearly 1,000 Wayne County residents who were due to be foreclosed April 1 were pulled out of the pipeline because they had applied for help from the state.įor the homes that remain in foreclosure, Make It Home can help renters already living there stay in place and become homeowners themselves. More than 19,000 people have applied for help from the Michigan Homeowner Assistance Fund more than $3.3 million to pay property taxes has already been distributed, according to data from the state. Hence the decision to extend the relief to those who owe taxes going back to 2017.

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There is still some help available for homeowners in default: A statewide program that can cover up to $25,000 in mortgage payments, back taxes and other home fees beginning with money owed in 2019 might free up enough funds for homeowners who are behind to pay what they owe for earlier years, Sabree said. The treasurer said no homeowner who owed taxes for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 or 2021 lost a home that was their primary residence, but those who owed prior back taxes did, as did other owners who don't live in the properties that were lost.

But for more than 4,000 property owners in the city of Detroit, the time has run out.Įric Sabree, the Wayne County treasurer, said 4,087 properties in the city were foreclosed on, along with 663 properties across 11 other Wayne municipalities. 'I thank God for them all the time.'įor a third year, some homeowners at risk of property tax foreclosure have gotten relief due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 'It has been a blessing like no other,' Whitehead said of Make It Home. Whitehead said she was devastated.īut that owner hadn't paid property taxes on the house, and when it was foreclosed, Whitehead got a reprieve: Through a program called Make It Home, she got the right of first refusal to buy the foreclosed home that she was already living in. The deed, it turned out, was fake someone else owned the Joy Community home.

Then after seven months, she said, someone kicked in the front door and changed the locks. She paid the seller, got the deed and started renovations, fixing holes in the walls, reattaching the gas line, upgrading the plumbing and tearing down a dilapidated garage.

Howtoria Whitehead was living with her mother in 2018 when she saw a house for sale on Craigslist for $1,500.

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