National

Squatters Slow Detroit’s Plan to Bulldoze Way to Prosperity

Published

10 years ago

January 29, 2015

In a photo from, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, a demolition sign is posted on a vacant house in southwest Detroit. The actual number of Detroit squatters is unknown, but a real estate agent told the AP that about 30 percent of more than 100 empty homes she has shown to prospective buyers have had evidence that someone was or recently had been living inside. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

COREY WILLIAMS, Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — Chris Mathews’ crew showed up this month to demolish one of the thousands of vacant homes destined for demolition as part of Detroit’s grand plan to bulldoze its way to prosperity when a call from his office stopped them in their tracks: Someone was living there.

A middle-aged woman who watched the crew tear away the home’s warped wooden steps the day before had called their company, Adamo Demolition, to point out she was living on the second floor, despite no power, heat or gas and a flooded basement.

“It was like a swimming pool. We would never have thought anybody was upstairs,” said Mathews, noting that the incident cost his crew time because the demolition wasn’t called off until after they had shown up with their equipment.

As Detroit carries out its plan to tear down tens of thousands of homes to combat blight and tailor the city to fit its population, which has dwindled to about a third the size of its 1950s peak, it will have to deal with an unknown number of squatters. Since the city doesn’t allow occupied properties to be demolished, police must be summoned to remove squatters who won’t leave homes voluntarily, which can take weeks or months. That makes them a complication of sorts for the recovery of the city, which emerged in December from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Clearing away as many vacant houses as quickly as possible is a priority. Drug dealers often set up shop in them, bodies turn up in them and some houses have been sites of sexual assaults.

But for some of the approximately 16,000 homeless people in Detroit, the structures offer safety and shelter.

Michele McCray calls them “abandonminiums.” McCray, 58, has been homeless for much of her adult life, yet she has had her pick of vacant houses to live in over the years.

“You look for one that’s decent, already fixed up,” McCray said from a homeless shelter where she stays when it’s too cold to hunker down in a house without heat and other utilities.

“The first thing you do is cut the grass … because the neighbors want to know who you are and what’s going on over here. You have to maintain the property. Paint the place up, keep it looking good.”

She sees it as a community service.

“A lot of people leave the door open because they want somebody to move in there,” McCray said. “When you got somebody that’s living in a place … that keeps people from coming in, tearing the place up, stealing the fixtures. It cuts down on people starting places on fires, stealing your furnace.”

A survey completed last year determined that more than 40,000 structures needed to be torn down. Another 38,000 had indications of blight and could be up for demolition.

Squatters aside, the city will not stop its fight against blight, said Craig Fahle, a spokesman for the Detroit Land Bank Authority, the agency overseeing the project.

“Illegal occupancy is an issue, but there is plenty of work to do with homes that are not occupied,” he said.

About 10 percent of the houses Adamo goes out to demolish have squatters or evidence of squatters, according to Mathews.

Tiffany Tilley, a real estate agent, said about 20 to 30 percent of the more than 100 properties she has shown have had signs that someone had been squatting in them.

“When you’re in the kitchen you might see food with plastic utensils in open jars,” Tilley said. “There was an incident or two when there were feces stored in a bedroom in a bucket.”

Squatters make it more difficult to show and sell properties, she said, referencing an east side house shown to investors about a month ago.

“We didn’t go past the kitchen,” said Tilley, 38. “It was evident someone had been in there or was still in there. There is always a risk of danger when you’re dealing with someone who is squatting. I don’t want to take that chance.”

Latisha Johnson wants vacant houses in her East English Village neighborhood to be occupied, but not by squatters. She sees people living in houses that don’t belong to them as part of Detroit’s blight problem.

Johnson, a block captain and former leader of the neighborhood association, calls Detroit’s squatting “an epidemic.”

“I don’t personally believe that any squatter is a good squatter,” she said. “You don’t know exactly what is going on in that house. You don’t know if they are tearing up that house. The person has no responsibility and will not be held responsible for anything that occurs at that house.”

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Oakland Post: Week of April 23 – 29, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 23 – 29, 2025

Published

2 days ago

April 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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#NNPA BlackPress

Chavis and Bryant Lead Charge as Target Boycott Grows

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Surrounded by civil rights leaders, economists, educators, and activists, Bryant declared the Black community’s power to hold corporations accountable for broken promises.

Published

4 days ago

April 23, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent

Calling for continued economic action and community solidarity, Dr. Jamal H. Bryant launched the second phase of the national boycott against retail giant Target this week at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta. Surrounded by civil rights leaders, economists, educators, and activists, Bryant declared the Black community’s power to hold corporations accountable for broken promises. “They said they were going to invest in Black communities. They said it — not us,” Bryant told the packed sanctuary. “Now they want to break those promises quietly. That ends tonight.” The town hall marked the conclusion of Bryant’s 40-day “Target fast,” initiated on March 3 after Target pulled back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) commitments. Among those was a public pledge to spend $2 billion with Black-owned businesses by 2025—a pledge Bryant said was made voluntarily in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.“No company would dare do to the Jewish or Asian communities what they’ve done to us,” Bryant said. “They think they can get away with it. But not this time.”

The evening featured voices from national movements, including civil rights icon and National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) President & CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., who reinforced the need for sustained consciousness and collective media engagement. The NNPA is the trade association of the 250 African American newspapers and media companies known as The Black Press of America. “On the front page of all of our papers this week will be the announcement that the boycott continues all over the United States,” said Chavis. “I would hope that everyone would subscribe to a Black newspaper, a Black-owned newspaper, subscribe to an economic development program — because the consciousness that we need has to be constantly fed.” Chavis warned against the bombardment of negativity and urged the community to stay engaged beyond single events. “You can come to an event and get that consciousness and then lose it tomorrow,” he said. “We’re bombarded with all of the disgust and hopelessness. But I believe that starting tonight, going forward, we should be more conscious about how we help one another.”

He added, “We can attain and gain a lot more ground even during this period if we turn to each other rather than turning on each other.” Other speakers included Tamika Mallory, Dr. David Johns, Dr. Rashad Richey, educator Dr. Karri Bryant, and U.S. Black Chambers President Ron Busby. Each speaker echoed Bryant’s demand that economic protests be paired with reinvestment in Black businesses and communities. “We are the moral consciousness of this country,” Bryant said. “When we move, the whole nation moves.” Sixteen-year-old William Moore Jr., the youngest attendee, captured the crowd with a challenge to reach younger generations through social media and direct engagement. “If we want to grow this movement, we have to push this narrative in a way that connects,” he said.

Dr. Johns stressed reclaiming cultural identity and resisting systems designed to keep communities uninformed and divided. “We don’t need validation from corporations. We need to teach our children who they are and support each other with love,” he said. Busby directed attendees to platforms like ByBlack.us, a digital directory of over 150,000 Black-owned businesses, encouraging them to shift their dollars from corporations like Target to Black enterprises. Bryant closed by urging the audience to register at targetfast.org, which will soon be renamed to reflect the expanding boycott movement. “They played on our sympathies in 2020. But now we know better,” Bryant said. “And now, we move.”

Stacy M. Brown

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The Department of Education is Collecting Delinquent Student Loan Debt

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — the Department of Education will withhold money from tax refunds and Social Security benefits, garnish federal employee wages, and withhold federal pensions from people who have defaulted on their student loan debt.

Published

4 days ago

April 23, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

Trump Targets Wages for Forgiven Student Debt

The Department of Education, which the Trump administration is working to abolish, will now serve as the collection agency for delinquent student loan debt for 5.3 million people who the administration says are delinquent and owe at least a year’s worth of student loan payments. “It is a liability to taxpayers,” says White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at Tuesday’s White House Press briefing. She also emphasized the student loan federal government portfolio is “worth nearly $1.6 trillion.” The Trump administration says borrowers must repay their loans, and those in “default will face involuntary collections.” Next month, the Department of Education will withhold money from tax refunds and Social Security benefits, garnish federal employee wages, and withhold federal pensions from people who have defaulted on their student loan debt. Leavitt says “we can not “kick the can down the road” any longer.”

Much of this delinquent debt is said to have resulted from the grace period the Biden administration gave for student loan repayment. The grace period initially was set for 12 months but extended into three years, ending September 30, 2024. The Trump administration will begin collecting the delinquent payments starting May 5. Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Talladega College, told Black Press USA, “We can have that conversation about people paying their loans as long as we talk about the broader income inequality. Put everything on the table, put it on the table, and we can have a conversation.” Kimbrough asserts, “The big picture is that Black people have a fraction of wealth of white so you’re… already starting with a gap and then when you look at higher education, for example, no one talks about Black G.I.’s that didn’t get the G.I. Bill. A lot of people go to school and build wealth for their family…Black people have a fraction of wealth, so you already start with a wide gap.”

According to the Education Data Initiative, https://educationdata.org/average-time-to-repay-student-loans It takes the average borrower 20 years to pay their student loan debt. It also highlights how some professional graduates take over 45 years to repay student loans. A high-profile example of the timeline of student loan repayment is the former president and former First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama, who paid off their student loans by 2005 while in their 40s. On a related note, then-president Joe Biden spent much time haggling with progressives and Democratic leaders like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer on Capitol Hill about whether and how student loan forgiveness would even happen.