Wayne County’s moratorium on tax foreclosures causes collateral damage to some of Detroit’s most vulnerable Originally published in MetroTimes Last week, the Wayne County Treasurer announced a total moratorium on tax foreclosures for the year 2020 due to the state of emergency caused by […]
Originally published in MetroTimes There is something jarring about flipping between the news stories of General Motors’ Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant closing and Fiat-Chrysler’s new east side facility breaking ground. When a plant opens, public and private sectors invest together, with millions in tax subsidies, land deals, and other incentives from local government. When a plant […]
As published in Riverwise magazine How state policy legalized the destruction of Detroit. Detroit is a city with so much to lose and so little to spare. Popular narratives which attempt to describe Detroit’s struggles resort to abstract reasoning, such as the ‘invisible hand of market forces’. Other times, corporate submission to global market trends […]
Originally published in Riverwise Magazine The dual issues of water shut-offs and tax foreclosure are well-known causes of individual and collective harm. In both cases, bills are inflated beyond reasonable or affordable levels. In both cases, those high bills can lead to people living without the basic human rights of water and shelter. In both […]
Previously published in the Free Press with minor unapproved edits. Original below: It started with a Facebook post “77-year old women needs help immediately!” The woman was a renter of a tax foreclosed home, and a stream of well-meaning friends offered their advice about what she should do. There was fear that she would face eviction, […]
Originally published in Hour Detroit An iconic image of winter in Detroit is the columns of smoke spewing from sidewalks. Steaming streets are part of the landscape, but few know the answers that lie beneath this mystery in plain sight. Below our sidewalks, there’s a vast infrastructure that includes electricity, water, sewer, and fiber optics. […]
Originally published in the Detroit Free Press If you’re anything like me, you feel a little sick when you hear that yet another 36,000 Detroit properties are facing tax foreclosure this year. Tax foreclosure is an autoimmune disorder through which our own local government has become the agent of its own destruction. The city, the […]
Detroit is Not for Sale Originally published by Metro Times At the time of this writing, Detroit is in the midst of yet another round of the staged cage-fight that is the tax foreclosure auction. In many ways this feels like an individual fight — one home at a time fighting to mitigate the harshest consequences […]
[Originally published by ModelD. All photos depict homes that were occupied when they were acquired by Detroit Land Bank Authority but are now vacant.] Detroit’s greatest paradox is its abundance of space and its scarcity of quality housing. The massive stock of single family homes once sustained double the current population. Yet each year, more […]
The following is a conversation that my friend Margo Dalal and I had about the closing of Goodwell’s Market. Michele: “Pocket sandwich with avocado and cheese.” For an indecisive person, figuring out lunch can be a difficult prospect. What I loved about Goodwell’s is that I always knew what to order and, when lunchtime rolled around, I always […]
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