WAYNE COUNTY, Mich. – The foreclosure ban in Wayne County has been extended.
First Baptist Institutional Church Pastor Robyn Moore said extending the foreclosure ban directly impacts the people who live in a particular Detroit neighborhood.
READ: Wayne County to halt foreclosures of occupied homes, businesses through 2022
“They’re normal people just like everybody else who are being impacted by the pandemic and need that type of support,” Moore said.
Wayne County Treasurer Eric Sabree requested the extension, which a circuit court judge granted Monday. The ban would’ve expired this week, but now has been extended through March of next year.
“I’ve heard it already from taxpayers. They’re relieved because they feel like they can take a deep breath and regroup and save their practice,” Sabree said.
Sabree said it makes financial sense for the city to give homeowners more time to pay and wait to collect rather than Detroiters losing their property and then the city auctioning it off.
There’s a lot of money that’s in the pipeline right now. Stimulus checks, money coming from the state,” Sabree said. “We also have folks waiting on income tax returns and unemployment, and so I think that this is a great move to allow people more time to make your payments.”
The city is also partnering with several nonprofits to keep people in their homes, offering to help with repairs, mortgages and utility bills.
“It’s resulted in literally thousands of homes being able to be saved,” Ted Phillips, with the United Community Housing Coalition, said.
The United Community Housing Coalition said the underlying issues that led to a possible foreclosure still need to be addressed.
“If we simply get to next year and everybody’s one more year behind our job,” Phillips said. “Then this just bought people a year. ... I don’t want to throw cold water on a good thing it just, overall, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done.”
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