Head Heart Hustle: BREAKING NEWS ACLU Housing Settlement!

Head Heart Hustle Herald

Wednesday, July 4th Edition

BREAKING NEWS ACLU Housing Settlement!

You heard it here first:

Yesterday, Detroit City Council approved the settlement of a two-year-long lawsuit with the ACLU regarding tax foreclosure of low-income homeowners. The settlement includes permanent improvements to the “poverty tax exemption” program for low-income homeowners. Those applications are the “radical paperwork” that I and my team complete every day to make sure no one loses their home for taxes they could have been exempt from. Another aspect of the settlement provides relief for low-income homeowners whose homes were foreclosed this June.

My team at UCHC operates a program that utilizes the City’s “right of refusal” to help residents of foreclosed homes have the first opportunity to buy their homes back. According to the settlement, low-income homeowners will be able to get their homes back for $1,000 rath than having to pay the full tax debt or losing their homes to public auction. Potentially, hundreds of homeowners whose homes are foreclosed RIGHT NOW can buy them back in they make it into our program.

For too long, Detroit residents have lost their homes for taxes they should have been exempt from paying. This victory is bittersweet: many of those homes are gone for good and many of those residents may never own a home again or may have left Detroit permanently.

And yet, we are hopeful that this marks an ending to the narrative where people lose their homes on the basis of taxes they shouldn’t have had to pay.

Now, we must get everyone signed up for this program in the next TWO WEEKS or their homes will go up for auction.

More about the news story posted by ACLU Michigan and the Detroit News.

The work doesn’t stop just because the campaign is going. If you can offer your time and energy to help with my campaign or our outreach work at UCHC, you will be helping me do my jobs better. Contact me to volunteer or donate at any time.

Your candidate,

Michele Oberholtzer