Concept: Give abandoned homes to city workers?

**Crumbled_pavement** · April-17-09, 07:00 PM

I was on the Freep.com [[Mayoral Candidate Interviews) looking at the interviews given to both Ken Cockrel, Jr. and Dave Bing and one of the posters asked an interesting question. He suggested instead of the city tearing down abandoned homes that the city instead give those homes to police officers and fire fighters who currently live outside the city. I think this is an interesting idea. In my opinion it would take homes that are a detration to the city and make them an asset to the city [[productive neighbors, taxpayers, etc). I would go a bit further and give the homes away to any city workers [[obviously some criteria would have to be determined but current residency would not be one). I think this could also help the mayor's negotiation of reducing salaries for workers [[10% pay cut). The biggest expense most people incur is a place to live. If that was free, or near free, it would be like a pay raise even if the worker took a 20% pay cut. It is one creative way to deal with the glut of abandoned homes.

What are some other creative uses for abandoned homes that could benefit the city beyond just tearing them down? Granted, I am only referring to homes that can be renovated, not structures that are so derelict that they cannot be repaired.

**Russix** · April-17-09, 07:08 PM

Wow suddenly your paying city income and property tax, what a deal!

lilpup · April-17-09, 07:12 PM

AND you can't get rid of your [[much bigger) house and yard in suburbia!

**Locke09** · April-17-09, 07:20 PM

Maybe city workers can be given preference. Definitely police oficers because they help to stabilize neighborhoods. But why not also includeanyone who is willing to bring them up to code and live in them at least 10 years. No more absentee landlords needed.

Maybe they should also be able to demonstrate that they have the financial means to bring them up to code and maintain them.

Sludgedaddy · April-17-09, 07:43 PM

...what a wonderful concept! And while you're day dreaming of a Worker's Utopia, let's give Ireland back to the Polish.

**Crumbled_pavement** · April-17-09, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by Sludgedaddy

...what a wonderful concept! And while you're day dreaming of a Worker's Utopia, let's give Ireland back to the Polish.

Or maybe you could come up with a better idea since that is the question I asked you!

Originally Posted by lilpup

AND you can't get rid of your [[much bigger) house and yard in suburbia!

Why can't you?

lilpup · April-17-09, 08:05 PM

Originally Posted by Crumbled_pavement

Why can't you?

because the sales market sucks

After being laid off locally my brother just got a new job in Port Huron. He'll be commuting because houses in their neighborhood aren't selling right now.

**westsideffd** · April-17-09, 08:47 PM

Until the issues of schools and crime are addressed it just will not be appealing to the the young families.

**DetroitPlanner** · April-17-09, 09:11 PM

I'm all for City employees living in the City, however when residency was banned by Gov Engler many fled due to the taxes. The best way to get people living in the City again? Lower taxes and insurance so there is no incentive to live elsewhere. Fixing the school district would help too, but that is up to the school district, not the City. By Lowering the taxes, you could get more affluent folks to move into the City and make it up on volume. However most rich folks are not dumb. They don't want to see their tax dollars wasted.

What we have here is a swirling mess of problems, each figthing against one another. Leadership needs to tackle things one at a time and make the hard decisions. The next budget will reduce the garbage tax by 15 percent, thats a step in the right direction, but there should have never been that tax put there in the first place.

**Crumbled_pavement** · April-18-09, 09:11 AM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

I'm all for City employees living in the City, however when residency was banned by Gov Engler many fled due to the taxes. The best way to get people living in the City again? Lower taxes and insurance so there is no incentive to live elsewhere. Fixing the school district would help too, but that is up to the school district, not the City. By Lowering the taxes, you could get more affluent folks to move into the City and make it up on volume. However most rich folks are not dumb. They don't want to see their tax dollars wasted.

What we have here is a swirling mess of problems, each figthing against one another. Leadership needs to tackle things one at a time and make the hard decisions. The next budget will reduce the garbage tax by 15 percent, thats a step in the right direction, but there should have never been that tax put there in the first place.

I don't think the poster that suggested this idea was simply thinking of a way to get more middle class back into the city but also thinking about a way to deal with the abandoned and rotting houses that will eventually have to be torn down in the city. The city definately needs to lower taxes - no argument there from me. In the meantime, what do we do with the ton of abandoned homes that are throughout the city. We're losing about 1k residents a month. That's a lot of houses.

**Gannon** · April-18-09, 09:19 AM

quote:"Maybe they should also be able to demonstrate that they have the financial means to bring them up to code and maintain them. "

No! Folks should be rewarded on bringing the property up to code and maintaining them with the LEAST possible spent, so recycling and creating from scratch is brought to the HIGHEST levels of peerdom.

Those who can throw around lots of scratch often do things they shouldn't...by the time it is obvious the damn thing is already built!

**Locke09** · April-18-09, 12:32 PM

Okay. Poor choice of words on my part. I was just remembering when people were purchasing homes in the Boston-Edison district for a few dollars. And maybe I'm remembering it wrong because I was just a child then. But I seem to recall that people were allowed to acquire homes they couldn't afford to maintain [[taxes, utlities, maintenance, etc.). The houses ended upon vacant again in a few years anyway.

How do you prevent that, with lower taxes, minimum income requirements, or just take a chance?

**detr0itkid** · April-18-09, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by lilpup

AND you can't get rid of your [[much bigger) house and yard in suburbia!

Houses are selling just fine when priced properly. Home owners are just unwilling to admit that property value is way down and wont be going back up any time soon. Like 10-20 years.

Most houses in the city are bigger than most houses in the suburbs. That is why they are messed upin the first place. It takes a lot more to maintain and operate a 2500 square foot 1920s detroit house than it does to maintain a 1200 sq ft 1950s ranch in the suburbs, people couldn't afford it.

I work on forclosures so I go to about 20 houses per week for the past 5 years.
In planned neighborhoods/subdivisions most detroit houses have lager yards than suburban homes. Although in the suburbs, especially further out suburbs, you do have more free standing homes with huge yards.

detroitchef · April-18-09, 01:05 PM

That idea sucks.
Like the city workers aren't punished enough, now you want to saddle them with the abandoned homes? What if they don't want one? We already abolished the silly residency clauses in their contracts. Simply pay them a fair wage and stop allowing folks like KK to screw with their ability to do their jobs.

Have you ever looked at the Fire or Police Commission boards? Art Blackwell and Rev. Holley sitting on those things, trying to decide which cops and firefighters deserve to keep their jobs? And now, instead of paying a fiar wage, spending money on equipment and programs to help them do their job, you're going to saddle them with some broken down and decrepit houses?

**Prodigal_Son** · April-18-09, 01:14 PM

I'm afraid that many city workers wouldn't accept the offer. You have to be a unique individual to move into the city right now, especially into an older home. Living in a 100-year-old beauty of a house is the best thing that ever happened to many Detroiters, but the value is hard to communicate to an outsider.
I don't think you can "push" people into the city, but I do think there are thousands of people in Michigan [[and tens of thousands in America) who would have a vision for living in Detroit, if they really thought about it.

Perhaps what we need is a massive PR campaign. But please don't put the city in charge of it! They're wasting enough money, and they'd be likely to make -- shall we say -- less than wise budgetary decisions.

If anyone is working on a PR project like I mentioned above, I'd love to help.

My website: http://risefromashes.wordpress.com/

**Crumbled_pavement** · April-18-09, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by detroitchef

instead of paying a fiar wage, spending money on equipment and programs to help them do their job, you're going to saddle them with some broken down and decrepit houses?

Where in this concept did anyone say they had to take one of these houses? And if you listened to the interviews that I posted in my initial post, BOTH mayoral candidates already said PAY CUTS and JOB CUTS are coming. They don't receive a fair wage now? I got bad news then. They're pay is going to go down, they're jobs are going to be cut. Detroit is no longer a city of 1.8M residents and can't afford to staff for that. As far as I am concerned these houses can be given away free to anyone. It's just a concept. Got a better one, then spit it out. Or should we just leave these abandoned homes sitting and rotting for 20 years then bulldoze them over like we have been doing for the last 5 decades!

detroitchef · April-18-09, 01:30 PM

Yeah, bulldoze all that shit and plant some farms or something. Give all city workers a farm! There you go.

detroitchef · April-18-09, 01:39 PM

Dude, in your rants, you forgot one thing. For 50 years, the city Legal Deartment has been unable to clear the titles of 99% of those properties. You can't just 'take' them and give them free to someone else simply because they 'wanted' it. What do you do when they can't afford the tax liens, or refuse to pay their own taxes and water bills? What about city employees who'd rather suck KK's nutsac before taking one of those properties over? No one is argueing that city employees will have to suck it up and make some concessions, but the idea of 'punishing' them by making them city propertyowners is ludicrious. Ditto for the idea of simply seizing them and giving them away to anyone, just for the asking.

And as for Gannon's stupidity, I am not even touching that idea, that the cheaper they are the more they should be rewarded. There's plenty of investors who'd buy and renovate a Detroit property today. Why don't they? Because all they will have as a result is a Detroit property. Whoop de do. What are you going to do with it? Rent it out? Supply the local scrappers with daily fixes of siding and copper pipe? Sell it? Let the city swoop in and seize it from you becasue it's nicer than the other ones in their inventory and some other dipshit 'wanted' it?

Grow up and think before you try to simplify a complex problem.

**Crumbled_pavement** · April-18-09, 01:49 PM

Originally Posted by detroitchef

Dude, in your rants, you forgot one thing. For 50 years, the city Legal Deartment has been unable to clear the titles of 99% of those properties. You can't just 'take' them and give them free to someone else simply because they 'wanted' it. What do you do when they can't afford the tax liens, or refuse to pay their own taxes and water bills? What about city employees who'd rather suck KK's nutsac before taking one of those properties over? No one is argueing that city employees will have to suck it up and make some concessions, but the idea of 'punishing' them by making them city propertyowners is ludicrious. Ditto for the idea of simply seizing them and giving them away to anyone, just for the asking.

And as for Gannon's stupidity, I am not even touching that idea, that the cheaper they are the more they should be rewarded. There's plenty of investors who'd buy and renovate a Detroit property today. Why don't they? Because all they will have as a result is a Detroit property. Whoop de do. What are you going to do with it? Rent it out? Supply the local scrappers with daily fixes of siding and copper pipe? Sell it? Let the city swoop in and seize it from you becasue it's nicer than the other ones in their inventory and some other dipshit 'wanted' it?

Grow up and think before you try to simplify a complex problem.

What rant? The only one ranting is you. Since when does any employer force an employee to take a benefit? You keep saying "force" the city workers to take the properties. Who proposed forcing anyone to do anything? As far as the city taking over the properties, what's the difference between that and bulldozing it over?

And as always, people in this region only have criticisms - never any ideas.

**Jimaz** · April-18-09, 03:04 PM

I suppose this story from today's Detroit News is related: Redford Township jumps into housing market.

**iheartthed** · April-18-09, 08:53 PM

The city had a program a few years ago where they would sell abandoned properties to people for $1, if the person agreed to pay the necessary money to bring the house up to par. It [[obviously) didn't work too well.

I think Detroit's issues go above and beyond housing so it's useless to keep focusing on these schemes to dump abandoned properties onto people. If the necessary steps were made to make Detroit a viable city [[like transit, jobs) then the housing situation would naturally rectify itself. Before someone misinterprets me, I'm not saying ignore the neighborhoods, I'm just saying that the city shouldn't be in the real estate business.

**Prodigal_Son** · April-19-09, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by Crumbled_pavement

And as always, people in this region only have criticisms - never any ideas.

A criticism worth considering, unfortunately.

**stnfrnt** · April-19-09, 03:47 PM

Anybody feel like giving some of those houses to homeless veterans?

lilpup · April-19-09, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by stnfrnt

Anybody feel like giving some of those houses to homeless veterans?

I wonder if there's any kind of Federal grant program that could help with that and the necessary follow up re: health care [[esp. mental health) and employment. If the support was there it could be feasible.

Maybe some of the more effective non-profits could partner up wherever possible and use them as transition and low income housing, be it for vets or whoever. If a group like Habitat for Humanity could partner with, say, Detroit Rescue Mission, or some Vet related group...don't know if the VA has any type of assistance programs that could be tapped.

Retroit · April-19-09, 08:56 PM

I think it would make more sense - and be cheaper - to tear down most of the abandoned homes in Detroit. I'm not talking the historic mansions; I'm talking the run-of-the-mill cheaply built, poorly maintained Detroit house.

But I give you - or the interviewer/poster - credit for trying.

I think abandonment will be self-correcting: Eventually, black flight [[the sequel to white flight) will continue to a point where large enough areas are vacated to allow for building of subdivisions of new housing. If the current phase of abandonment is allowed to continue, Detroit should be pretty well placed for the next housing boom in 10 years or so. I realize that that is a long time to wait, but I just don't see favorable "immigrating" conditions anytime sooner.