by: Shiva Shahmir

Following two Michigan Supreme Court rulings, Rafaeli v. Oakland County in 2020 and Schaeffer v. Kent County in 2024, Michigan residents who experienced property tax foreclosure between 2015 and 2020 were granted the right to retroactively claim surplus proceeds from their homes being auctioned for more than the tax debt owed. For example, if a homeowner hadn’t paid their $1,000 annual property tax for two years and lost their home to foreclosure, and the county later auctioned the property for $20,000, the homeowner would now be owed $18,000. This practice of retaining surplus proceeds resulted in Wayne County reportedly collecting $92 million between 2005-2015.

Based on data provided by Alex Alsup (link), it became clear that, among Wayne County’s 41 cities, Detroit residents were disproportionately impacted, effectively sacrificing their homes to keep the county financially afloat. Filtering out commercial properties and speculators, Alsup and Outlier Media identified approximately 2,700 former Detroit homeowners who qualified to claim surplus proceeds, with an average amount of $8,000 each.

Outlier Media became aware of this in late 2024 (link) (link), resulting in a very short window to identify and notify affected residents before the March 31, 2024 claim submission deadline mandated by Michigan statute. Starting in late January 2024, Outlier began hosting phone banking events (link). Initially, we only had the address and the name on the deed at the time of foreclosure, making it difficult for volunteers to locate phone numbers. As a workaround, many phone bankers had to rely on Google searches to identify current contact information.

Outlier partnered with the Detroit Justice Center (DJC) to gain access to public records via LexisNexis. From there, Detroit Documenters and DJC volunteers began looking up both contact information and whether the former homeowners were still living. If deceased, volunteers were asked to identify likely next of kin or potential beneficiaries. Tragically, 40% of the former homeowners were found to be deceased. With limited clarity from the Wayne County Treasurer’s office, Outlier operated under the assumption that it was best to submit claims by the deadline, even if no probate cases or estates had been opened. After searching for contact information, more phone banking events were held where unlike the first sessions, these later events had a noticeably higher contact rate as volunteers were actually reaching people.

I was hired on a three-month contract as project manager in the first week of February after contributing as a Documenter, helping look up contact information, and attending a pilot phone bank in January. Recognizing the scale of the outreach, I bought a cheap flip phone to keep communications organized, as I was responsible for dozens of follow-up calls after each phone bank.

In the two months leading up to the deadline, we made 4,321 calls, resulting in 481 successful contacts. We estimate these efforts could lead to $5,882,473 potentially being returned to impacted former homeowners and their families. Out of those 481 contacts, I personally responded to 200 follow-up calls, which I tracked individually. Fortunately, the Detroit Housing Network’s call center  stepped in to assist with additional follow-up efforts.

On March 29, just days before the deadline and after our final phone bank, I attended the workshop “Mapping Your Local Environment” led by CJ Knoble and presented by Detroit Documenters, Planet Detroit, DetroitData, Urban Data Response, and Rooted Futures Lab. We learned how to use Felt for mapping and were encouraged to create one ourselves. The day before, I had organized a one-stop claim submission event at the Joseph Walker Williams Recreation Center where free notary services were provided, and the City of Detroit’s Department of Revitalization collected claim forms to deliver to the Treasurer’s office. As I helped people complete their paperwork, I realized I had previously been in contact with many of them. Inspired, I created a map at the workshop to explore whether the residents I’d reached represented the broader geographic spread of the windfall profits owed, and whether some areas saw more concentrated profits than others.

Data Layers Included:

• The boundary of Wayne County
• The boundary of Detroit
• A heatmap of addresses eligible for surplus proceeds, released by the Wayne County Treasurer’s office
• 📲 Emojis from my claimant follow-up spreadsheet, each representing a home I personally consulted

Observations:

To visualize areas with higher concentrations of qualifying foreclosures, I converted the list of eligible addresses into a heatmap. The results are likely not surprising to most Detroiters: the issue was widespread across the city except in areas such as Wayne State University/Cass Corridor/Midtown, the riverfront, and neighborhoods near Ferndale and Grosse Pointe. Although there were pockets that were less impacted by property tax foreclosure between 2015-2020, it was painful to see how prevalent they were in Detroit compared to the other cities in Wayne county as depicted in the heat map.

The distribution of the 📲 symbols, representing homes I personally contacted, was wide but I could see that I lacked strong outreach in some heavily impacted neighborhoods. I was especially disappointed that I didn’t assist more residents in Southwest Detroit, where I live, and where the heatmap showed many eligible properties. Given that Southwest is a predominantly Spanish speaking community, they may have routed their follow up calls to our partner there, Bridging Communities or other organizations. Although there are gaps on my personal outreach map, I presume that a map of total calls to 2,163 out of nearly 2,700  impacted former homeowners that were placed during phonebanking events would fill those pockets. If there had been more time it would have been great to map earlier on to track the distribution and build more localized partnerships. 

Next Steps:

Michigan statute requires that claimants receive a response from the Wayne County Treasurer’s Office by July 1st 2025. It is the second week of June and I am getting calls from anxious claimants who still have not heard back. I am able to relay that no one has received their letter as of yet, and their calls assure me that I will know when they do arrive. The expected letter from Treasurer Sabree is supposed to confirm the amount that is owed and instruct the claimant on next steps. I expect that a large portion of claimants will be disappointed to find that there is another step, which is to file a motion in court. This might  be particularly intimidating for those who claimed interest as heirs or beneficiaries. We do not know how WCTO will be responding to claimants who didn’t have a probate open when they submitted the initial form March 31st. Detroit Justice Center is contracting experienced probate attorney Deborah Choly to assist heirs with filing. I am back at Outlier as of last week for this second phase and will be organizing workshops where claimants can be guided through filing as well as receive specialized support and resources for the process. I will be keeping track of who reaches back out in this phase and hope to map again to compare and contrast my outreach in each phase.

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Shiva Shahmir holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia, with a concentration in architectural theory and environmental design, and an MPS in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute. Since 2017, she has voluntarily managed Spread Art, a nonprofit, community-programmed cultural space, as President of the Board. In 2023, Shiva joined Wayne State University as part-time faculty in the Music Department, where she lectures on studio recording and music technology. In 2024, she became an active Detroit Documenter with Outlier Media, where she is now contracted as a Project Manager. Shiva is also an artist and a proud FCC-licensed amateur radio technician.