As we prepare to set out to the uplands for the much anticipated Bird Season Opening Day & embark on our slow travels and new mobile lifestyle.
It reinforces my observation that no one in this part of the world really never "OWNS" any REAL-estate. Even if it is "paid for" from a mortgage, you never truly own it.
So, to all of those who have expressed their concern that we no longer HAVE A HOUSE, here is some food for thought.
Who Really Owns Your Home?:
Detroit Preparing to Foreclose on 142,000 Residents By 2016
Have you ever considered the legitimacy of property taxes? It’s one
thing for the government to take a cut from your income, but there’s
something deeply offensive about the idea of property taxes. It’s the
idea that you have to pay your local government, year after year for the
rest of your life, for something you’ve already
paid in full. It’s complete nonsense.
It calls into question whether you even
own your
property in the first place. After all, do you really own it if you
have to keep paying for it? It seems to closely resemble the medieval
system
of serfdom. The peasants didn’t own the land they worked on. They had
to pay a yearly fee for the right to work that land, which went towards
the nobles and knights. It was protection money. So at least they had
the
benefit of protection from the warrior class in those societies. Can you say the same of
your local police?
I digress. In reality, you don’t “own” your house or the land it sits
on, even if it’s been paid in full. That’s another benefit those
peasants have on us. They didn’t have to pay some
bank
for decades, only to have their land taken from them when they didn’t
pay their “yearly fee”. They were never under the illusion that the land
belonged to them.
I doubt the people of
Detroit
have any illusions either. They’re facing an unimaginable crises that
threatens to put tens of thousands of residents on the streets. The city
government is about to show us once and for all,
who really owns the land.
This year in Detroit, there have been 22,000 foreclosures
on properties whose owners failed to pay property taxes three years in a
row. Of those, 10,000 are estimated to be occupied, meaning this year’s
foreclosures are set to oust about 27,000 Detroiters from their homes.
That’s a large number in a dwindling city with fewer than 700,000 residents, but the figures are set to get even worse. In the next couple of months, Wayne County’s treasurer will be serving foreclosure notices on 110,000 more properties, 85,000 of which are in Detroit, according to its chief deputy treasurer David Szymanski. With half of those Detroit properties estimated to be occupied, this means a further 115,000 Detroiters might lose their homes next year.
In a city supposedly trying to attract residents rather than lose
them, this means a potential 142,000 Detroiters—one-fifth of the city’s
population—will be shown the door within the next year and a half. The
city has yet to announce plans for accommodating those who get evicted.
So they’re basically going to evict the bottom fifth of the city in
one fell swoop. What kind of country do we live in, where a city can
look their citizens in the eye and say “Sorry, you’re not good enough
for us. You don’t make enough money to live in the poorest city in
America. You’re not rich enough to grace the bottom of the barrel.”
They’re really prepared to throw their citizens out on the
coldest and meanest streets of America, while their fiscally and morally bankrupt government
spends 450 million dollars on a brand new hockey stadium.
That is just wicked.
Somehow I don’t think this is going to end well for the city. I don’t
think they’re going to be able oust 142,000 of their poorest and most
desperate residents. These people
don’t have anything left to lose,
and there aren’t enough cops to evict them at gunpoint. If this comes
to a head, then the residents of Detroit should prepare themselves for
the next major American riot.
Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author.
More background from Detroit
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – Wayne County will send people
door-to-door to offer thousands of foreclosed Detroit homes for as
little as $500, a move that would keep a roof overhead for occupants and
possibly get properties back on the tax rolls.
More than 6,000 Detroit homes, foreclosed because taxes weren’t paid,
didn’t sell at auction last fall. The county treasurer’s office doesn’t
want to see them abandoned and is willing to negotiate with anyone
living inside, including owners who no longer have a right to the
property.
Wayne County Deputy Treasurer Eric Sabree told WWJ’s Sandra
McNeil representatives from his office will make the offer on thousands
of delinquent properties.
“A person must prove to us that they are bonafide residents who
unfortunately, I am presuming, have been paying their rent to somebody
who apparently didn’t pay their delinquent taxes,” Sabree said.
Sabree said there are a number of ways people can prove residence.
“Not only through an authorized state identification card or a driver’s license, a cable … a utility bill
— anything of those sorts are reviewed and then a determination is made and a offer to those individuals,” he said.
Sabree said the residents must agree to be monitored for two years to
make sure they keep up the property and the taxes on the house. He said
it’s a way to stop blight.
“A vacant house is not going to help anybody,” he told The Detroit News.
Charles Brown, 62, said he’s been squatting in his home
for about a year. He said he installed windows and doors and uses the
fireplace for heat. “I am still doing a lot of work,” Brown said. “It
would mean a lot if I could keep it.”
A neighbor who rents, Freda Armstrong, said she would have purchased Brown’s house at auction.
“That is a brick house. I would have fixed it up,” she said. “A lot of people don’t even know these houses are for sale.”
A similar program last year led to the sale of 1,200 homes. The city
of Detroit isn’t endorsing what county tax officials are doing with the
real estate. Ed McNeil, who negotiates labor contracts for
union-represented city employees, said it seems unfair to reward people
when someone in the same neighborhood may never have missed a tax bill.
Indeed, retiree George Philson, 63, pays $1,800 a year.
“I would rather have them meet their obligation like I am meeting my obligation,” he said.
John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor
who studies land issues, said 12,300 Detroit parcels were foreclosed
because of unpaid taxes last year. “There is no end in sight,” Mogk
said. “The problem is just so large and overwhelming in Detroit.”
The county’s offer could keep Durand and Sharon Micheau in their
bungalow, which was purchased in 2010. They lost it because they
couldn’t pay three years of unpaid taxes, fines and interest of $17,900.
“We are not looking to dodge our responsibility,” said Durand, 42.
“If I could pay the taxes right now, I would, but I don’t have the money.”
We are going to keep for the next year, Colorado as our home base, in the near future we will be taking advantage of our location and head to the mountains for some much needed R & R, fishing, Boondocking.
