Recent News article 7/23/14 about "Occupants of foreclosed homes pose challenge"

[dguy4evr]

Am I missing something here? This article states that a woman living tax free in a city-owned house drove up in a BMW to find eight police officers, two utility workers, and an attorney in the front yard. In spite of this she is still occupying the house! Maybe tax free housing is a "Human Right" too.

[Jimaz]

FYI, you're one link short of making a point.

[Vic01]

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140723/METRO01/307230031/Detroit-Land-Bank-s-dilemma-How-handle-squatters-foreclosed-homes

[canuck]

Our buddy Craig Fahle has a lot of bread to slice. 22,000 properties on top of the 6700 they already own are coming his way.

[Danny]

Shelter or other homesteads is a human right. And so is squatters' rights. Let anyone squat in any abandon home that is not worth selling.

[Honky Tonk]

Shelter or other homesteads is a human right. And so is squatters' rights. Let anyone squat in any abandon home that is not worth selling.

Right On Danny! Give them free water, free electricity, free heat, free cable, free cell phones, [[did I miss anything?) Oh Yeah, and a free gas card for their Beemers! These basic necessities, coupled with free beer, are basic human rights, guaranteed by our constitution.

[SWMAP]

Must wait for Sumas to provide moral direction here. Only she can tell us if this a racist plot or possibly good fiduciary management to make people pay their taxes. I predict that she will say that people should only pay taxes that they agree are "fair." Anything else may be racist.

[Hermod]

Plus the obligatory anti-defense argument that the money we spend on the defense budget should go to this woman to pay her taxes [[and everything else she needs or wants).

[Honky Tonk]

Must wait for Sumas to provide moral direction here. Only she can tell us if this a racist plot or possibly good fiduciary management to make people pay their taxes. I predict that she will say that people should only pay taxes that they agree are "fair." Anything else may be racist.

Careful, you wouldn't want to label yourself an idiot troll. You might get the dogs sicked on you.

[Lowell]

This problem along with the water bill delinquencies, blighted properties and crime are all brought on by lax enforcement and poor record keeping. This has created a scofflaw environment that is taken advantage by people with needs and those who are not as well. This use to be true of parking enforcement but back in the eighties the city began aggressive collection and it has worked. If I am Duggan I'm telling the other departments to study parking enforcement and learn from that example.

Obviously it is more complicated because shelter and water are human rights and past negligence in enforcement places part of the blame on governing bodies and should require careful separation of the needy and the greedy.

[mwilbert]

This problem along with the water bill delinquencies, blighted properties and crime are all brought on by lax enforcement and poor record keeping. This has created a scofflaw environment that is taken advantage by people with needs and those who are not as well. This use to be true of parking enforcement but back in the eighties the city began aggressive collection and it has worked. If I am Duggan I'm telling the other departments to study parking enforcement and learn from that example.

Obviously it is more complicated because shelter and water are human rights and past negligence in enforcement places part of the blame on governing bodies and should require careful separation of the needy and the greedy.

It is going to take some time to go from being a city where most of the normal procedural and administrative tasks are either done badly or not at all, to one where they are done more-or-less routinely. It appears to me that the city administration is on the right track, but to think that there won't be transitional issues as the backlog of unattended-to problems gets addressed seems unrealistic to me. Part of that is dealing with the culture of non-compliance that has built up over decades of non-enforcement, but I don't know that going from one extreme to the other all at once is the best plan.

[Jimaz]

... and should require careful separation of the needy and the greedy.

That so needed to be said. Why have we been missing that simple point for so long?

This is why Detroit needs better IT systems for tracking things.

[Meddle]

Shelter or other homesteads is a human right.

No, it isn't. Lots of people live in tents or outdoors with no roof at all. And that's all over the world.

Authorities left to avoid a confrontation, they said, but not before towing a Lexus and Saab they say were illegally parked.

They should have towed her Beemer too and held in lieu of payment for the taxes.

[mtm49269]

Shelter or other homesteads is a human right. And so is squatters' rights. Let anyone squat in any abandon home that is not worth selling.

Sorry, Danny, but the land bank sold the Beemer-"Lady"'s house TWICE already and had to refund the bidder's $$. House is definately worth selling if two different buyers put $$ down on it.

[cjd]

Shelter or other homesteads is a human right. And so is squatters' rights. Let anyone squat in any abandon home that is not worth selling.

I think people often confuse saying something is a 'right' with meaning somebody else has an obligation to pay for it.

[Detroitdave]

Sorry, Danny, but the land bank sold the Beemer-"Lady"'s house TWICE already and had to refund the bidder's $$. House is definately worth selling if two different buyers put $$ down on it.

The County foreclose on the house first , then sold it while the woman was squatting in it , the new "owners" couldn't get the woman out , so the county had to give the people their money back , then the county foreclosed again, still couldn't get her out , then turned it over to the Landbank , because they handle their own foreclosed properties , they just pass the buck over at Wayne county

[renf]

Who is responsible for physically removing someone who is living in a home they do not
own? I have read that the Detroit police do not have the responsibility. Do you have to
get a special court order to remove someone from your property? If so, who enforces
the court order by removing the occupants?

[Hermod]

Who is responsible for physically removing someone who is living in a home they do not
own? I have read that the Detroit police do not have the responsibility. Do you have to
get a special court order to remove someone from your property? If so, who enforces
the court order by removing the occupants?

You would think that the county would have the house cleared [[by the sheriff's office) before they went to closing with a warning to the evicted occupants against future trespassing.

[Jimaz]

Who is responsible for physically removing someone who is living in a home they do not
own?...

I read an interview of the guy a few years ago. I might be remembering wrong but I think his title was "constable."