His plan involves bundling all foreclosed occupied homes into one not-for-sale block and passing it through the auction, after which authorized organizations like housing nonprofits and land banks can work with occupants to turn them into owners and preserve the properties. The city's foundations, in Paffendorf's vision, could put up the money needed for the treasurer to remove the occupied homes from the auction.
As Paffendorf sees it, the primary hurdle to stemming the tide of tax foreclosures is the fact that Wayne County benefits from the money made by selling occupied tax foreclosed homes at auction. Wayne County Treasurer Eric Sabree recently told Metro Times the county last year made $19 million selling such homes. The money, he said, was distributed to schools, libraries, and parks. The county's chief financial officer, however, downplayed the county's reliance on the money.
If foundations can come together "to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent the art at the DIA from being sold," he says, they can invest in helping Detroiters save their homes, because it "would have a much bigger impact on the [people] living in the city's neighborhoods."
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