0:03

For most of my family members. Holding

0:06

onto our land in Gilmour, Texas was

0:08

simply more trouble than it was worth. What

0:11

started with eighty acres of potential farmland

0:14

or property to extract resources from,

0:17

turned into a liability over time, Why

0:21

taxes. My

0:24

name is plus Maurice Montgomery,

0:26

the third. You might remember Plas from

0:29

episode one. He's a computer

0:31

technician by trade

0:34

and lives in Dallas. He

0:36

came into about two acres

0:38

in much the same way my dad did. It

0:41

was passed down to him from my great great

0:43

aunt and uncle. The Broodics

0:46

Pleas, more than any relative

0:48

I spoke to, has tried to make something

0:50

of our family's land. He leased

0:53

the trees on it to a timber company, he

0:55

sold oil rights. He even toyed

0:57

with the idea of turning it into a farm.

1:00

But as time went by, he decided

1:02

to give up on the land. Basically, what

1:05

I decided to do, or what I

1:07

wanted to do, was

1:10

to simply sell the land so

1:12

that it was no longer a liability

1:14

on me or my family. The problem

1:17

was his tax bills kept going

1:19

up. When I first started following

1:21

this, I'd get tax

1:24

statements every year from ups your county. The

1:27

the whole thing would come out to maybe

1:31

undred two thousand dollars,

1:34

okay, two thousand

1:36

dollars a year, yes,

1:39

And then suddenly the

1:42

tax statements I would get they

1:46

started to increase exponentially.

1:48

The last statement I remember was right around

1:52

and when when when this this

1:54

this increase took place. It

1:57

went up to ten

2:00

thousand dollars, and

2:03

then I noticed so I increases

2:06

over the next few years. And

2:08

then in two

2:11

thousand five or

2:13

so, the statement

2:16

I got indicated almost

2:18

a twenty dollar tax liability

2:22

and it continued to rise from

2:24

there over

2:27

the years. Plus its tax liability

2:29

gained as he fell behind on payments. It's

2:32

also made it hard for him to find a buyer who

2:34

would take on those unpaid taxes. In

2:37

a wide ranging interview, the mayor of Gilmour,

2:39

Tim Marshall described the essential role

2:41

of property taxes and funding local

2:43

projects. I think what people are expecting

2:46

are they're expecting their infrastructure to

2:48

be maintained, and people

2:50

don't understand. Sometimes it's the infrastructure,

2:52

even though a little small town like this is

2:54

the sewer, water, streets

2:56

in different things like that, the police department, the

2:58

fire department. There's a lot of inner workings

3:01

within the city, and the value

3:03

of your land typically most

3:05

people around, has gone down a little bit.

3:07

So by raising your taxes a

3:09

little bit the right we

3:12

generate the same amount of money. No

3:14

one disputes the need of a county or district

3:17

to raise funds for schools and roads. But

3:19

for many Black Americans, like Pleas, high

3:22

tax bills have also become the greatest burden

3:24

on land ownership, and in thousands

3:26

of US counties, something more is

3:28

happening. Black Americans are

3:30

experiencing unfairly

3:33

high taxes. In today's episode,

3:35

we'll take you to one of those places. How

3:49

the statistics are other cruel. The

3:51

gap between the average income for Negroes

3:53

in this country and the average income

3:56

for lights has not clued. Do

3:58

you think a Negro family and moving here

4:00

will affect the community as a whole? I

4:03

think that, well, the property utters will immediately go

4:05

down if they are allowed to move

4:07

in here on any number. So much bitterness

4:09

built up in a person and resentment when

4:12

you know that you're being segregated again

4:14

simply because you're black. OK. At

4:17

the bottom of the economic letter, the

4:19

bottom of the housing letter, the bottom

4:21

of the educational letters. We

4:23

have lived. I'm leaving town

4:25

on Andition for how

4:29

many years? Before hundred years? I

4:31

was prepared to try to get used to having

4:33

a colored family on the block. Now

4:36

there's another one across the street. You pretty soon they'll be

4:38

one next door, and before you know what, those streets are

4:40

gonna start looking like Harlo Well. I don't want

4:42

to live in a colored slum. I don't want to

4:44

live in a colored slum? Is that terrible?

4:55

Welcome back to the paycheck. I'm Rebecca Greenfield

4:58

and I'm Jackie Simmons. In

5:00

the US, owning property has

5:02

been a major driver of wealth creation. Last

5:05

week, we talked about land ownership

5:07

and how black farmland in particular has

5:10

been chipped away over the years. This

5:13

week, we're turning our attention to the

5:15

heart of the American dream,

5:17

owning a home. As we

5:19

talked about previously, race

5:21

and racism has a lot to do with who

5:24

historically has had access to the US housing

5:26

market, and we see those legacies

5:28

play out in the stats today. Nearly

5:31

three quarters of white families own homes,

5:34

while less than half of black families do.

5:37

This has how white people build wealth in all

5:39

sorts of ways. What's even

5:41

more troubling is that these disparities

5:43

aren't getting any better. In Black

5:47

home ownership rates had a record low since

5:49

at least ninety There

5:51

are lots of reasons for that, but

5:54

at least some of it has to do with

5:56

taxes. A

5:58

new Bloomberg Business investigation

6:01

uncovers how an unfair taxation system

6:04

is hitting black homeowners hardest. Jason

6:06

Grotto has the story, I

6:16

want to take you on a journey of what it's like

6:19

for me when I have to pay my rent every

6:21

month. I

6:24

don't It's the last weekend of the

6:26

month. So Dilicias Scott

6:28

is on her way to the post office. Ah,

6:31

can I have a money

6:32

order? I

6:37

need a money order? Where is it going

6:39

to for a payment? From

6:44

there, she drives north on the freeway,

6:47

just past Detroit's city limit to

6:49

hand deliver her rent to a drab office

6:51

building Noble for Era. So

6:54

if I drop it off myself, driving

6:56

here, I know a gay here, I

6:59

see that it went into the building, so

7:02

no one can say, well, we didn't get her payment.

7:05

This monthly ritual leaves her feeling

7:07

angry and frustrated. That's

7:09

because this isn't just any house

7:11

she's renting. She's been running a home

7:14

that for years she used

7:16

to own. It's not just

7:20

a rental property. This is

7:22

my home right. I raised

7:24

my children in this space, my

7:27

one thought since he was two years

7:29

old, my other six

7:31

kids five or six. We

7:34

did things in a home that you can't take out.

7:36

I can pack up my tangible stuff,

7:39

but I can't pack my memories. Despite

7:43

the trouble it's caused her, Dilicia

7:45

clings fiercely to the two story tutor

7:48

where she's lived with her three children for

7:50

sixteen years. The landlord

7:52

refuses to give her a lease or fix

7:55

the collapsing back porch, and

7:57

when it rains well, she

7:59

needs three buck gets upstairs to catch

8:01

water from the leaky roof. You

8:03

can tell, brain, and you can

8:05

tell how hard you

8:08

cant will

8:12

pour in in the drift. So like if I'm

8:15

sleeping in the middle of the night and it's start the storm,

8:17

and it's right in real hard, the drifts wants

8:21

like a

8:24

bucket. The story of how

8:26

Dilicia lost her home is tied

8:28

up in an injustice that has gone on

8:31

for years and touches nearly every

8:33

community in the country. It's a

8:35

problem that has contributed to the racial wealth

8:37

gap by saddling lower income,

8:40

mostly black communities with burdens

8:42

that wealthier and wider ones avoid.

8:45

It's a systematic injustice that lurks

8:48

in the most mundane of manners, municipal

8:50

property taxes. Dilicia

8:55

lost her home in two thousand fourteen

8:57

because she fell three years behind on her party

9:00

taxes. She got laid off

9:02

from her job at a domestic violence shelter

9:04

during the Great Recession. Then

9:07

her partner, the father of her kids,

9:09

left, drastically reducing the family's

9:12

monthly income. It took her two

9:14

years to find a job at a new shelter.

9:16

By then, the fees and fines from

9:19

missing payments compounded the money she

9:21

already owed, leaving her stuck

9:23

in a crushing cycle. I fell

9:25

into depression. There was days

9:27

where I didn't even realize

9:30

that my kids had to go to school, Like

9:33

I just couldnt get out of the bed.

9:35

My mental capacity just wasn't there

9:38

to recoup the unpaid taxes. Wayne

9:41

County, Michigan, foreclosed on her home,

9:43

which she had purchased in two thousand and five

9:46

for sixty three eight hundred dollars.

9:49

Then the county auctioned it off in November two

9:51

thousand fourteen, and a Utah

9:53

based investment company snapped it up for

9:56

just forty dollars. Since

9:58

then, the house is old two more

10:00

times two different investors. The

10:03

last sale in February

10:05

fetched eighty four thousand dollars,

10:08

eighteen times the price paid six

10:10

years earlier. Dilysia meanwhile

10:13

lost her entire investment. In

10:15

fact, she pays more now in rent

10:18

than she did when she had a mortgage. But

10:20

here's the catch. She never should

10:22

have lost her home because

10:25

their tax bill should never have been that high

10:27

in the first place. For

10:35

years, Detroit city officials

10:38

used wildly and accurate valuations of

10:40

the house to calculate Dilysia's

10:42

property tax bills, artificially

10:44

inflating them by about fifty eight

10:46

hundred dollars more than she should have paid,

10:49

according to a Bloomberg analysis of her tax

10:51

records. Once she fell behind,

10:54

late fees and other penalties made it

10:56

even harder to catch up. After

10:58

missing two more bill, she was nearly

11:01

ten thousand dollars in the whole Hers

11:04

was among tens of thousands of homes in

11:06

Detroit's lower income black

11:08

neighborhoods That city officials routinely

11:10

overvalued for tax purposes. Meanwhile,

11:13

homes and affluent areas were systematically

11:16

undervalued, reducing the taxes

11:18

those homeowners paid. Detroit

11:23

officials have admitted they over taxed about

11:25

a hundred and thirty thousand people between

11:27

two thousand and ten and two thousand

11:29

and thirteen, but they say

11:31

that now, while mistakes do happen,

11:34

the system overall is fair. That

11:37

assessment is disputed by Christopher

11:39

Barry, who first uncovered these

11:41

inequities. A public policy

11:44

professor at the University of Chicago, Chris

11:46

has been studying property tax systems

11:48

for years. I met him while

11:50

working as a reporter in Chicago, where

11:53

he started documenting unfair assessments.

11:56

He didn't realize that at the time, but he

11:58

was about to embark on years research

12:01

uncovering the fundamental unfairness

12:03

of property taxes. I had kind

12:05

of been thinking of this as one of these only

12:07

in Chicago sort of phenomena,

12:10

and there's just so many things like this that you get used

12:12

to if your person that lives here in Chicago. But

12:15

as that Chicago work began to do

12:17

to get attention, I started to hear

12:20

from people elsewhere, and first it was you know

12:22

some activists in Detroit who said, hey, you know, we

12:24

read about what's going on in Chicago and the work

12:26

you did there. We're having the same issues

12:28

here. You should take a look. And then it was

12:30

you know, a lawyer in New York says, we've

12:32

got a lawsuit going on similar

12:34

issues here. And then as a reporter in St.

12:37

Louis, you know, every place I look,

12:40

I'm finding something similar. You know, the names

12:42

changed, some of the details are different, but the overall

12:44

pattern of unfairness and equity is just

12:47

repeated place after place. Chris

12:49

found that in cities and towns across the

12:51

US, local officials have systematically

12:54

overvalued the lowest priced homes

12:56

relative to the highest, creating higher

12:58

effective tax rates for those who can least

13:01

afford to pay. From two thousand

13:03

and six through two thousand sixteen,

13:05

inaccurate valuations gave the least expensive

13:08

homes in Baltimore an effective tax

13:10

rate that was more than two times higher than

13:12

the most expensive in New York

13:14

City. It was three times higher in

13:16

St. Louis, almost four In

13:21

theory, these taxes should be completely

13:24

fair. Property taxes

13:26

are what's known as ad valorum Latin

13:29

for according to value. Every

13:31

property in a given place is supposed

13:33

to be taxed at the same effective rate. What

13:36

determines that rate is the value

13:38

of the property, and that's where things go

13:40

wrong. Chris found the nature of the problem

13:43

is that people that own lower priced homes are

13:45

systematically having their homes valued

13:47

at more than their worth, while

13:49

people at the top are systematically having

13:52

their homes valued at less than their worth. And

13:54

when the values are not right, and the values

13:57

are unequal, then the taxes which

13:59

are just comp huteed based on those values are also

14:01

going to be unequal. Chris

14:04

found the property tax is deeply

14:06

unfair because it's regressive.

14:09

That means the burden of the tax falls

14:11

heavier on lower income people. It's

14:14

the opposite of progressive taxes

14:16

such as the federal income tax, which

14:19

applies higher rates to people with

14:21

higher incomes. And that's

14:23

a big deal because Americans pay

14:25

more than five hundred billion dollars

14:27

a year in property taxes. That

14:30

pays for public safety, schools,

14:33

sanitation, and all the other

14:35

services cities and towns provide.

14:39

This as a matter of equity and

14:42

our our values as a society.

14:44

There are lots of reasons why people may argue

14:46

about progressive taxation. I mean, should

14:48

should the rich pay more? But there's really nobody

14:51

who's making a normative argument in favor of regressive

14:53

taxation, right that as a matter of principle,

14:56

we should have the poor pay more. This

14:58

isn't happening in a vacu. The disparities

15:01

hurt Black communities disproportionately

15:04

because the legacy of racial discrimination

15:06

has left those communities with a larger

15:08

share of lower priced homes. The

15:11

median home value in black census tracks

15:13

is nearly half of what it is in majority

15:15

white and Hispanic ones, according

15:17

to a Bloomberg analysis. So

15:20

the way that shakes out is black

15:22

homeowners end up paying more in property taxes

15:24

relative to their market value than white

15:27

ones. This is

15:30

just a textbook example of

15:32

institutional racism or systemic

15:34

racism, or whatever you'd like to label

15:36

it. And what I mean by that is,

15:40

I don't think there's

15:42

anybody in

15:44

the assessor's office who's

15:47

sitting there and explicitly saying,

15:50

hey, let's go in the black neighborhoods and

15:53

you know, jack up their assessments, and then

15:55

let's go into the white neighborhoods and make them lower

15:57

up but nevertheless, the

16:00

outcomes that we see from the system

16:02

are racially disproportionate, and

16:05

that's the very definition of sort of institutional

16:07

racism.

16:09

But of course, these kinds of disparities

16:12

are rooted in a history of racial discrimination

16:14

that is explicit, and

16:17

it's impossible to understand why this taxation

16:20

disproportionately affects black communities

16:22

without talking about the US legacy

16:24

of housing segregation. I

16:27

sat down with Bretton Mock of Bloomberg

16:29

City Lab. He's been covering this for a while.

16:38

Hey, Breton, thanks for joining us. Yeah,

16:41

thanks for having me on. I'm excited

16:43

to dig into this. Yeah. Well,

16:45

it all starts with home ownership, which

16:47

is one of the primary ways that many Americans

16:50

accumulated wealth in the twentieth century.

16:52

But it's one that white families have been able

16:55

to capitalize on in ways that black families

16:57

have not. And this runs so much

16:59

deep for than property taxes, right, I

17:01

mean, the history here helps explain

17:04

why Black Americans are the ones with lower

17:06

valued homes to begin with. Yeah,

17:09

and here's the irony. You talked about

17:11

homes being overvalued when it comes

17:13

to setting the property tax rate. Well,

17:16

many of those same homes are being undervalued

17:19

by a different set of appraisers when it comes

17:21

to deciding what they're worth on the market. Because

17:24

of racial segregation, properties

17:26

and majority black communities have historically

17:28

been appraised at much lower values and sold

17:31

at lower prices than similar properties

17:33

and majority white neighborhoods. That

17:35

kind of price coding has pretty much been cemented

17:38

in the housing market thanks to the practice

17:40

of redlining. Redlining

17:43

Katerina talked about that in episode

17:45

two. How does that fit into

17:47

our story? Yeah, Like

17:49

Katerina explained, redlining

17:52

was a government sanctioned program for deciding

17:54

that entire neighborhoods would be considered

17:56

risky by giving them a grade between A and

17:58

D. Black neighborhoods

18:00

were routinely graded D and literally

18:03

shaded and read on real estate maps

18:05

in just about every city in the US.

18:08

This practice pretty much ensured that very

18:10

few people in black neighborhoods would be able

18:12

to purchase houses or even get loans

18:14

to improve homes that were already purchased.

18:17

But those laws have been reformed now

18:20

have fair housing laws at least begun to reduce

18:22

the gap between white and black home appraisals.

18:26

Well, that's the crazy part. Yes.

18:29

Starting in nine eight with the Fair

18:31

Housing Act, these particular practices

18:33

were banned. But actually, recent

18:36

research has found that the gap between appraisal

18:38

values of black and white homes has widened.

18:41

The gap is being exacerbated because the

18:43

praisers currently decide to homes value

18:45

by looking at the selling prices of surrounding

18:47

homes without any kind of correction.

18:50

That history of low values has just compounded

18:53

over time. But what

18:55

does that disparity mean in economic

18:57

terms?

19:00

So I spoke with Andre Perry at the Brookings

19:02

Institution to help put this into context.

19:05

I worked with him on a book several years ago about

19:07

undervalued black properties. Since

19:10

then, he's done a study to quantify differences

19:12

in black home values. He explained

19:14

how, after controlling for all housing and neighborhood

19:17

factors, homes and black neighborhoods

19:19

were under priced in appraisals compared

19:21

to white neighborhoods. By

19:24

here's Andre, accumulatively,

19:27

that's about a hundred billion in

19:29

lost equity. And that's just in alone.

19:32

I always put it in in um

19:35

perspective. Um, the hundred

19:37

fifty six billion would have financed

19:39

more than four point four million

19:42

black owned businesses based on the average

19:44

amount Blacks used to start up their firms, they would

19:46

have paid for more than eight million UM

19:49

college degrees based on the average amount

19:51

of a public education. Now, this is

19:53

money that is really robbing

19:55

people of the opportunity

19:57

to lift themselves up. And remember

20:00

where we started this conversation, the

20:02

racial wealth gap. These differences

20:05

matter because home massets are supposed

20:07

to appreciate as they are passed down through generations.

20:10

As Andre puts it, wealth begets

20:12

wealth. So if you are

20:14

able to own a home, if your grandfather

20:17

was able to own a home and

20:21

they and here's he

20:23

had children, he could pass

20:25

on the equity gained

20:27

from that house to the child, or

20:31

UM you can apply it to um

20:34

the college education, you can use

20:36

it to start a business. Remember most people

20:38

start their their business using

20:41

the equity in their home. So

20:43

UM, if you did not have

20:47

if your grandfather great grandfather could

20:49

not own a home, it's it's

20:52

less likely you're going to be able

20:54

to have wealth. Dilicia

21:06

is acutely aware of this relationship

21:09

between home ownership and wealth. It's

21:11

why she's so doggedly committed to buying

21:14

her home back, despite the perversity

21:16

of the costs she has already borne. Like

21:19

so many other parents, She's concerned

21:21

about leaving her three kids an asset

21:23

that will give them a leg up because

21:25

she believes they'll be better off in the long run.

21:28

For her, the house could be a source

21:30

of foundational wealth. You

21:32

know, I just want to leave them more

21:35

than a couple of insurance policy. And

21:38

that's that's the only thing. A couple of insurance

21:41

policy and a ragny

21:43

car. That's the only thing I have to

21:46

offer them right now. And that's not fear

21:48

for them. And I have to think about

21:50

my mortality. I have to think about

21:52

a plan. What is going to happen

21:54

to them? Um,

21:57

I don't want them even if if

21:59

if I'm a going to buy this house, I don't

22:01

want them to have to live there for the rest

22:03

of them their lives. Like but

22:05

I want them to have an asset right.

22:08

Dilicia lost the home after was

22:11

overvalued by a property tax assessor.

22:13

Even though many of the same homes get undervalued

22:17

when it comes to appraising their market price,

22:19

how does that happen? To understand

22:22

that, you need to get an idea for how local

22:24

tax officials determine the value of homes.

22:27

Unlike appraisers assessors aren't

22:29

able to visit every home in the city.

22:32

Instead, they look at the prices

22:34

of homes that have sold within the last year

22:36

or so. They then use computer

22:38

models to estimate the value for all

22:40

the homes in the area. But

22:42

those computer models are only as good as

22:44

the data going into them. It turns

22:47

out there are some significant gaps

22:49

in the data, and those gaps lead

22:51

to some pretty serious errors that cause

22:53

unfair assessments to creep in, especially

22:56

for people in lower valued homes. Chris

22:59

explains, I often

23:01

try to explain this to people by imagining

23:04

that we did income

23:06

taxes the same way we did property taxes.

23:09

So imagine that the i r S

23:12

each year only got a W two

23:14

for about one percent of the population. So

23:16

for one percent of the people, the i r S

23:18

actually knows what your income was, and

23:21

for the other people they

23:23

have to guess. They have to guess what your income

23:26

is. And as a taxpayer,

23:28

you don't file taxes. You just get a

23:30

letter from the hares each year saying, hey, we

23:33

guessed that you made a hundred thousand dollars last year.

23:35

Here's your tax bill. That's

23:38

how we do property taxes. And

23:40

if we did income that way. I think it would be pretty

23:43

obvious to people the ways in which that would be

23:45

sort of incorrect and unfair.

23:48

Just to build on the professor's analogy,

23:50

local property tax officials do a bit

23:52

more than just flat out guessing. They

23:55

try to compare similar homes. Say

23:57

a four bedroom, two bathroom branch sells

24:00

for two dollars. Local

24:02

officials will use that information

24:05

to help guide how they assess the value of

24:07

other four bedroom to bathroom

24:09

ranch houses in the same area or neighborhood.

24:12

If the i R S used that same method

24:14

to set income taxes, the resulting

24:17

unfairness becomes pretty clear. Suppose

24:19

they knew nothing about you at all. The

24:22

best they could guess is that you were

24:24

making the average income. They'd

24:26

say, we think you made the average income

24:29

last year. Pay taxes on the average income.

24:31

Well, that's really bad for

24:34

people who earned below the average, because they're

24:36

being treated as if they earned more than they

24:38

did, and they're paying taxes that are too high. But

24:41

it's a great deal for people who were above

24:43

average, because they're being told they were average

24:45

and they're paying taxes that are too low. And

24:47

so you can already see the inequity that's

24:49

built in this kind of averaging. That's

24:54

what would happen if they had no data about

24:56

you at all. Even

25:00

with a little more data, the method

25:02

that local officials used to set property

25:04

values just isn't robust enough to capture

25:07

important differences in market values

25:09

among different homes for people

25:11

like Delicia, those flaws can

25:13

be disastrous. In fact, in

25:15

places like Detroit, they just don't

25:17

keep black families from acquiring and

25:20

passing down wealth, they contribute

25:22

to the actual destruction of it. One

25:25

of the things we know about that the

25:27

whole property tax process is that when people

25:29

can't pay, they are subject

25:32

of various kinds of sanctions by

25:34

the state. And so you may

25:36

have had your home systematically over tax overcharged

25:39

too much, and then if you can't pay those

25:41

unfair taxes, you might lose

25:43

your home due to a tax foreclosure,

25:47

or you might have your home sold from out from under YouTube

25:49

some kind of investment firm that that is going around

25:52

buying up these low value at homes. And you know, there's

25:54

nowhere in the country where this has been a bigger problem

25:56

than Detroit, where fully one

25:58

quarter of all home in Detroit have been

26:00

foreclosed on for failure to pay taxes. I'm not

26:02

talking about any mortgage foreclosure here, but in fact

26:05

a tax foreclosure. In

26:07

fact, Detroit officials have admitted

26:09

they over taxed tens of thousands of

26:12

people. Yet the

26:14

property tax system is so complicated

26:16

that Dilicia didn't find out about being

26:18

overtaxed until she read about Chris's

26:21

work in her local newspaper in

26:23

February two thowy six

26:25

years after she lost her home. Soon

26:28

after, she reached out to him,

26:30

but by that point there was nothing she

26:32

could do about it. It's embarrassing

26:35

right there. I feel like there is

26:37

no safe place for me to hand this conversation

26:39

because I'm going to get a judge

26:42

one way or another.

26:44

Uh, you know, it's it's a

26:47

lot. I feel betrayed

26:49

too. Yeah, I feel left behind.

26:52

I feel left behind. And

26:54

then and then well, last year, to

26:57

learn that I was overtaxed

26:59

why five thousand. It

27:01

makes me sad, It makes me depress,

27:05

It makes me feel like a failure. And

27:07

that's another consequence of broken tax

27:09

systems. People like Dilicia

27:12

are forced to process and struggle

27:14

with the shame of it all, even

27:16

though what's happened isn't her fault because

27:19

she was treated unfairly. In fact,

27:22

Dilicia is so ashamed that six

27:24

years on she still hadn't told

27:26

her children that she had lost the home. I'm

27:29

gonna eventually have to have that conversation.

27:32

I don't know how, UM,

27:35

but I figure I have to get myself a time

27:37

frame because I

27:40

don't know. UM is

27:42

very scary right now, not being on the

27:44

least um. But

27:47

I have to have a plan for them, Like

27:49

I just can't just say like,

27:52

oh, this is it and okay,

27:54

see you guys later. They

27:56

don't deserve this. My daughter

27:58

actually she looked it up and

28:01

she said, huh, I was

28:03

on this site. This is a couple of months ago,

28:05

and I was on this site, and it's

28:08

that our house was stolen in February. And

28:10

that's it. Girl, I don't

28:12

know what you're talking about. Since

28:18

Detroit officials admitted to pass problems,

28:21

they say they fixed the system and that now

28:23

it's fair. Yet Chris is

28:25

found that property taxes in Detroit

28:27

continue to be really regressive still.

28:31

Alvin Horne, the city's top assessment

28:33

official, has come out against Chris's findings.

28:36

Here. He is at a recent press conference

28:38

evaluation, and a very smart person

28:40

once told me this, there's an art, not a science.

28:43

You have the facts, but you also have to understand

28:45

the market Detroit as a unique

28:47

market, and you can't. You can't

28:50

get those nuances simply from

28:52

a sales study. You have to live

28:54

here and you have to understand what's going

28:56

on here to understand valuation.

28:59

At that same press conference, he

29:01

and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan criticized

29:04

Chris for refusing to share the data

29:06

underlying the study, but

29:08

later, in an interview with me, the

29:10

top possessor admitted he had seen the data,

29:13

saying that on average, Detroit system

29:15

is fair, while acknowledging that mistakes

29:17

can still happen. The

29:20

data say otherwise. In fact,

29:23

I replicated parts of Chris's analysis

29:25

and found the same thing, Detroit

29:27

system remains deeply unfair.

29:34

Despite everything she's been through, Dilicia

29:36

still holds onto the hope that she can buy

29:38

back her home. To try to save

29:40

for a down payment, she took on a second

29:43

job in October, delivering

29:45

food via door dash. Usually,

29:48

what what happens a typical day

29:50

for me during a week is, um

29:53

I go to work, like when I work on site,

29:55

I'll go to work. Then straight

29:57

from work, I get in my car, I turned

30:00

my dash app and I started dashing to

30:02

probably about ten eleven

30:04

o'clock at night. Then I do

30:06

it again on the weekend. Sometimes

30:10

when she's out delivering food in more affluent

30:13

neighborhoods, Delicia can't

30:15

help but consider all that's happened

30:17

to her. I don't need fancy homes,

30:20

and they just so nice. They all lit

30:22

up and beautiful and um.

30:24

Last night I went to a house and they had like

30:26

about five or six brand new cars

30:29

in the driveway. And all I

30:31

think of when I see this, like this

30:34

is nice, this is real nice. All

30:36

I want is my piece of like like

30:41

like, I'm sure it would be nice, but I

30:44

just want what what I've worked so

30:46

hard for. Lisa's

30:57

experience shows one way the system keeps many

30:59

black families off the wealth ladder that is

31:01

home ownership. For plays

31:04

back in Texas, there was never going

31:06

to be a farm or profits from oil

31:08

or timber. Instead,

31:11

with no buyer in sight, he's stuck

31:13

with the land and is now on the hook

31:15

for at least sixty dollars and

31:17

taxes and penalties. That's

31:19

on top of as much as sixteen thousand

31:21

dollars. He says he and some family members

31:24

have already paid for the

31:26

record. I dug into county documents

31:28

and talked to local officials. Indeed,

31:31

his tax bill jumped between two thousand nine

31:34

and two ten, more than

31:36

double, but the county tax assessor

31:38

says that overall the tax

31:40

liability is where it is because

31:43

he hasn't paid taxes as they came to Plas,

31:46

is now facing foreclosure, and

31:48

between his Social Security checks and

31:50

some income from a side business fixing computers,

31:53

he makes sense meet, but says

31:55

sometimes he's just living paycheck

31:58

to paycheck. For

32:06

the next few episodes, we'll be looking at

32:08

ways to close the racial wealth gap. First

32:11

up, a program that works, but

32:14

it's highly controversial. Without

32:16

that extra step, you know, I may would have

32:18

done okay in life, but I doubt

32:20

if I would have I would have gotten a PhD

32:23

by the time I was twenty six, and I doubt

32:25

if I would have been a profess at the age. Thanks

32:33

for listening to The Paycheck. If you like the

32:35

show, please rate, review, and subscribe

32:37

wherever you get your podcasts. This

32:40

episode was hosted by me Rebecca Greenfield

32:43

and Me Jackie Simmons. Today's

32:45

episode was edited by Nicole Flato

32:47

and Francesco Leady. It was reported

32:50

with the help of Jason Grotto and Brenton

32:52

Mock. This episode

32:54

was produced by Magnus Hendrickson. We

32:57

also had production help from Lindsay Cradowell and

32:59

editing help Janet Paskin, Rock Shoto,

33:01

Soluja, John Boskell, Jackie Simmons

33:04

and me. Our original music is by

33:06

Leo Sidrome. Francesca

33:08

Levie is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.

33:10

We'll see you next time.