Victims of decades-old discrimination now fight tax bills
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — Black victims of discrimination had to wait decades for a Detroit enclave to replace homes that were demolished in the 1950s and ’60s in the name of urban renewal.
Now, only a few years after many finally got keys to their new homes, dozens of Hamtramck residents are back in federal court challenging property tax bills that they can’t afford.
“Astronomical,” said Mary Miner, whose taxes rose 63 percent to
$2,600 on her two-story house on Goodson Street. “This is how I’m treated?”
Miner, 67, and others are worried they’ll be priced out of homes that were built or rehabbed as a legal cure for the destruction of Hamtramck’s black neighborhoods. They’re zeroing in on key words that helped resolve a 1968 lawsuit : affordable housing. A judge has responded by suspending tax bills and ordering negotiations.
It’s another twist in a 49-year-old case that doesn’t seem to end.
Lawyers for Hamtramck, a 2-square-mile industrial city of 20,000 that is surrounded by Detroit, said it’s “dangerously false” to claim the city is targeting blacks with higher tax bills.
“We want them to stay and be part of the community,” Mayor Karen Majewski said. “This was just part of a broader strategy to make sure we had accurate information about the value of our properties.”
Hamtramck was a much different city when the case first went to court. Blacks said white city leaders were destroying their neighborhoods by knocking down houses in the name of urban renewal or allowing the route of Interstate 75 to cut them off from the rest of the community. In 1971, U.S. District Judge Damon Keith said “the total effect was removal of black citizens.”
But it took another decade for Hamtramck to agree to offer 200 housing units as well as housing for senior citizens. Construction still didn’t start for many more years, due to political opposition and poor city finances.
Now, nearly a half-century after the lawsuit was filed, the latest quarrel centers on property taxes. Hamtramck said it decided to update the values of 150 properties after neglect by past assessors. That step led to higher tax bills.