SONJA BONNETT:
Foreclosure affected my home. It put a looming tension and doubt in the house. It took our happiness away for a second, a good amount of time. It’s so heavy that it damaged my health. It broke me a little. But, I’m back now and I’m ready now.
This house sold for three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. I’m surprised it didn’t sell for less. I think that my house is worth between, five hundred to a thousand dollars. So the assessor says my house is worth twenty two thousand dollars. That is severely incorrect. When you go to buy a house you look at not just the house but the things surrounding your house, the neighborhood in general. Everything around us is falling apart. There are abandoned houses all down my block on each side. I need siding on the right side of my house. My roof has holes in it. The sewer system, the plumbing. We have a flood in the basement every time it rains, every time.
Being illegally assessed makes me so angry. I knew it was wrong. I did not know it was in Michigan’s constitution, but I knew it wasn’t right. Detroit is eighty percent black. It feels like the same type of injustice that is happening so many other places. Rather it be, getting pulled over because of driving while black or any of those types of things. It’s the same thing, just hidden better.
I learned about the poverty tax exemption through hearsay and we have to be eligible for this. But everyone I asked about it at every one of these buildings in downtown Detroit, either didn’t know about it at all or sent me to one place, that sent me to another. I got nowhere. So, it makes me angry. But at the same time, they started something. They don’t know what they started and we’re about to finish it.
Dear mister Mayor. Come talk to us. This neighborhood they consider so bad. Come to the neighborhoods that are hit the hardest. I want to see the city of Detroit take responsibility. We’re talking about over one hundred thousand people that lost their homes. We’re not doing this to ourselves. This is not laziness. I want to see people get help. I want help, but I want to see other people get help.
Join the fight to stop illegal property tax foreclosures that violate Michigan's state constitution! www.illegalforeclosures.com
video by Bernadette Atuahene and Seth McClellan
