This is what desperation looks like. A no-frills community center. Volunteers unfolding extra chairs for the parade of poor people who come clutching envelopes of tax documents in hopes of saving their homes.
They’re people like factory worker Merneesha Chears. She is in the front row waiting to meet with a counselor. She needs to enter a payment plan soon on the $2,000 she owes in back taxes to prevent her foreclosed home from being sold at auction.
Chears watches the clock. Her three young children are in the car outside. They don’t know what’s happening.
The scene inside the west side Detroit community center is as depressing as it is mundane.
That’s because misery is monetized by counties across Michigan, and no government relies on money from tax foreclosures as much as Wayne County.
In recent weeks, nonprofits have hosted workshops before the June 7 deadline for owners of tax-foreclosed homes in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, to agree to repayment plans. If they don’t, the homes will be auctioned this fall.