Wayne County foreclosure numbers see big dip

Foreclosures are down dramatically in Wayne County this year, thanks in part to door-to-door outreach and other programs designed to help keep residents in their homes.

The Wayne County Treasurer's Office is forecasting an almost 36% drop in the number of properties headed to auction for failing to pay three years of taxes, from about 28,000 last year to 18,000 this year.

Wayne County Treasurer Eric Sabree is crediting what he calls an unprecedented outreach effort with helping change the outlook.

"This problem is not going away (but) it's getting better," Sabree said of the foreclosure crisis blamed for helping decimate sections of Detroit in recent years.

For some residents, an infusion of cash or a payment plan can ward off tax foreclosure.

• Related:Westland couple 'blessed' to regain foreclosed home; others less lucky

'Everything will work out'

For Barbara Cochran, time is what she needs.

Cochran has lived in the same two-story house on a tree-lined street on Detroit's east side for 27 years. But Social Security only goes so far for the 66-year-old widow. She owes three years’ worth of back taxes – almost $8,900 for the 2013-15 tax years -- and has managed to hold on to the house where she raised two children because she has a payment plan with the  Treasurer’s Office.

Still, coming up with $254 each month for that plan has not been easy, and Cochran said she’ll have to cover an additional $1,000 that has accumulated from the months where she was short.

Cochran is filling the living room in her East English Village home with things she hopes to sell at an upcoming garage sale to cover her taxes -- a rug, Christmas ornaments and other things she calls knickknacks. She's willing to sell almost everything except the family pictures on her mantle.

“I’m not asking anybody to give me anything because I truly believe everything will work out. I’m just asking for time,” said Cochran, who collects ornamental turtles and likens herself to the slow-and-steady tortoise that wins the race.

Like thousands of other county residents, the vast majority of whom live in Detroit, Cochran has so  far avoided tax foreclosure with the help of payment plans and other programs. But thousands more could lose their homes to foreclosure if they still owe 2013 property taxes and do not make payment arrangements with the Treasurer’s Office by 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Almost 29,000 county residents (more than 22,000 in Detroit) have signed up for some type of assistance related to delinquent 2013 taxes, including 8,400 people who took advantage of interest rate reductions.

Detroit is the community most affected by foreclosures (16,000 could head to auction this year), but it's not the only one. As of May 16, several other Wayne County communities had more than 100 properties at risk -- Ecorse (201), Highland Park (186), Inkster (310) and River Rouge (176).

Door-to-door contact helps many

Other counties handle their foreclosures differently than Wayne County, with Sabree adding "we stretch (the deadline) as far as we can."

Macomb County, for instance, sticks with a deadline of March 31, but Treasurer Derek Miller said the office continues to work with property owners, managing to drop the number of properties facing potential foreclosure from 2,600 in February, to 318 as of Friday. Last year, that number was 449.

"Our big preference and our priority is not to foreclose on owner-occupied homes," Miller said, noting that he does not believe any of the properties on this year's list are occupied.

The foreclosure crisis has continued to unfold in the Detroit area years after the end of the Great Recession. The three-year foreclosure process means that those who failed to pay taxes years ago are only now faced with deadlines that could send their properties to auction if they do not act.

After Thursday’s deadline passes, the Treasurer’s Office will provide Wayne County municipalities with the list of properties within their borders. If the municipalities do not want the properties, they will head to auction.

But efforts have been under way to reduce those numbers.

• Related:Persistence, activism pays off for Detroiter who faced foreclosure

This month, surveyors with Detroit-based Loveland Technologies at the request of Sabree “knocked on the doors of 8,745 foreclosed residences thought to be occupied in the cities of Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck, making direct contact with 1,789 occupants and delivering information to all about options to stay in their home,” according to a report from Loveland about the effort, which was funded by the Kresge Foundation.

After the visits, 256 people went on payment plans with the Treasurer’s Office.

The report noted that 38% of those who were contacted did not know the property was facing foreclosure. Of those contacted, 44% were renters, 38% owned the home and 19% were either relatives, house-sitters, squatters or had some other informal relationship to the property, the report said. It also noted that 89% of those contacted wanted to stay in their home.

Despite the outreach effort and fewer properties expected to go to auction this year, Sabree had hoped for an even smaller number, something like 15,000 properties. That’s still a lot, but the key is making sure property owners are aware of both their situation and their options, he said.

“I don’t want anybody to say they didn’t know,” Sabree said. “We want to intervene early on with taxpayers when they first start missing payments.”

One additional change this year, Sabree said, is that the county will not foreclose on those properties where 2014 and 2015 taxes have been paid but not 2013. He would assume that since delinquent 2013 taxes are what would send a property into foreclosure, that that would indicate some type of mistake had been made.

'Beginning of the blight pipeline'

Ted Phillips, executive director of the nonprofit United Community Housing Coalition, has worked for years trying to get assistance for property owners facing foreclosure. Illiteracy and mental health issues sometimes prevent people from reaching out or even accepting help to avoid foreclosure, he said. Senior residents are also a vulnerable group.

“Part of the problem is just the overwhelming number of people” facing foreclosure in a city like Detroit, he said, noting the challenge of connecting to those individuals.

Even with efforts like door-to-door outreach, “there’s still a hell of a lot of people in foreclosure and still a lot more that could be done and needs to be done,” he said.

Part of that, Phillips said, should be extending a state  law that allowed many of those who owed back taxes to have their interest rates reduced from 18% to 6%. That law expires this year, although several local officials said they are hopeful the Legislature will extend the program.

Jackie Grant, the project manager for Loveland, said that in going door-to-door she and the others who helped in the survey were also focused on providing assistance and that many people were grateful.

“A lot of bad things have happened to good people in this city,” she said.  “When you get behind, it’s so hard to catch up.”

Victoria Kovari, general manager of the Department of Neighborhoods in Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's office, said extra efforts to prevent people from losing their homes this year started when Duggan convened a task force in December. The sheer number of homes not sold at auction but absorbed by the Detroit Land Bank Authority last year was more than 5,000, a wake-up call, she said.

“There’s just not the capacity to deal with that many Land Bank-owned properties,” she said.

City officials see foreclosure prevention as a key element in keeping Detroit’s neighborhoods viable.

“Tax-foreclosed properties are absolutely the beginning of the blight pipeline,” Kovari said, noting that foreclosure leads to vacancies which in turn leads to properties being stripped and further destabilizing neighborhoods.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @_ericdlawrence.

Wayne County foreclosures sent to auction

2016 -- estimated 18,000 properties

2015 -- 27,982

2014 -- 26,515

2013 -- 17,815

2012  -- 20,925

2011 -- 13,631

To avoid property tax foreclosure in Wayne County

Call or visit the Wayne County Treasurer's Office at 400 Monroe (5th Floor), Detroit by 4:30 p.m. Thursday. The office is open 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. most weekdays, but has extended hours on Wednesday until 6:30 p.m. Call 313- 224-5990 for general information or 313-224-6105 for taxpayer assistance or questions about payment plans. More information is at www.treasurer.waynecounty.com.