Counties across Michigan profit from selling foreclosed homes and charging fees on back taxes to down-and-out residents. No place does it more than Wayne County.
Joel Kurth
As executive editor of impact, Joel Kurth oversees newsgathering, investigations, and coverage strategy at Bridge Michigan. He joined Bridge in 2017 after 17 years as an investigative reporter and editor at The Detroit News, where he led investigations that drove policy changes on water shutoffs and surgical instrument sterilization and resulted in criminal charges against government officials. He and his teams have won more than 60 state and national awards across a 30-year career in Michigan that has also included stints at newspapers in the Upper Peninsula and Saginaw. Joel also authors Bridge's popular weekly News Quiz.
Joel lives in West Bloomfield with his wife and two children.
Posted inUrban Affairs
How to cash in on a crappy home. Step one: Find a sucker to sign a land contract.
Left for dead in the 1970s, lending through (often predatory) land contracts is back with a vengeance in Michigan and Rust Belt cities after the mortgage meltdown.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Detroit cites progress, but water shutoffs actually rose last year
Residential shutoffs spiked 18 percent in 2016 – countering city officials’ expectations. A staggering 83,000 homes have lost water service at some point since the city launched a crackdown on delinquent accounts in 2014.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Interactive Map: Detroit water shutoffs by neighborhood
Go block by block to scan the more than 27,000 homes that had water cut off in 2016.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Are Detroit water shutoffs and illnesses related?
“A significant difference in diagnoses” of skin or gastrointestinal infection was found in residents who lived on blocks with water shutoffs. But researchers acknowledge there’s not yet enough data to prove a link.
Posted inUrban Affairs
That Detroit rarity: a home mortgage
Can you call it a comeback if mortgages are only written in a few communities? Several years into a downtown recovery, neighborhood mortgage lending remains “pathetic.”