Yesterday, January 20, 2012, the New York Times published a story by two filmmakers. They have a documentary showing at Sundance film festival. It’s about the complex forces of destruction in Detroit. We thought it useful to look back on some Michigannow reporting 3 Januaries ago.
Please follow the 3-part series.
Aired Jan 6, 2009
INTRO: According to RealtyTrac, Michigan had the nation’s 7th highest foreclosure rate in the nation for the 3rd quarter of 2008. In Michigan in particular, copper theft has made foreclosure and abandonment even worse. Yesterday, Governor Granholm signed a law to clamp down on scrap yard. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus reports.
Foreclosed homes stick out in Detroit’s grandest neighborhoods. They’ve got for sale signs, junk mail piled up on the porch. Broken windows and doors. Rochester realtor Karen Nihls is showing the Wonderbread Mansion on Boston Blvd. On the outside, so far, thieves have only gotten the solid wood front door. Nihls is opening the side door.
“You never know what you’re gonna find when you walk in. This is anywhere in metro Detroit or just Detroit? No. Any vacant house. Any vacant house I don’t like to go in by myself. The bank owned property ones.”
The basement of this house is dry and clean. But thieves have struck here too. The boiler is just a shell. Its copper parts inside are gone. A newly installed boiler costs about $7,000. You can Blame the auto industry for Detroit’s real estate collapse. But copper theft is driving down home values further and faster. Karen Nihls reads what this house was selling for in 2007.
“It started out on the market in September at 297 and it sold in November, 2 months after it went on the market at 297. Then they put it back on the market. So from 325 asking to 101. It’s amazing.”
Deal after deal is falling through. Damage by scrappers discourages banks. They don’t want to have to pay for repairs to make a house liveable again. So the house stays on the market a few more months. And the scrappers get more time to cannibalize. A single house can plummet in value and bring the block down with it. Cash is the quickest way to buy a house. But who has any of that these days? Michigan had 145,000 new foreclosures in 2008, that’s according to the foreclosure database–Realty Trac. In the city of Detroit, you can find hundreds of foreclosed properties in a single zip code. Realtor Karen Nils says the suburbs haven’t been spared either.
“I sold a house in Warren where they had stripped out pretty much everything. They had stripped out all the copper plumbing. They had taken out all the doors off the back. They had it boarded all up. It was a mess.”
Interim Mayor…. Ken Cockrel Jr seems to recognize the problem.
“To those of you who are bad actors. To those of you who are stealing gutters and air conditioning units and wiring from our citizens and our businesses, to those of you who are terrorizing our senior citizens to the point where they don’t feel comfortable walking out their front door, we’re coming after you.”
Cockrel set up a copper theft task force with the Police Department. The force gets help from Wayne County prosecutors.
“just after last christmas someone stole the county’s christmas lights for the metal.”
Assistant Prosecutor Dennis Doherty authorizes the police to serve warrants on suspects.
“We had a case where somebody stole an 8 foot statue of Jesus off one of the local churches. It was painted green. It was actually plastic but because it was painted green the thieves thought it was copper. The cross ended up for sale on Craig’s list the next day. But they must have got smart because police recovered it in an ally the next day. And the rest of the cases are a lot of wire cuts.”
Doherty says recent Michigan law has allowed law enforcement to crack down.
“Maybe somebody’s causing significant amount of damage cutting down some wire or stealing something, some kind of metal, and if the value of the metal is under $1000 we can only charge that individual with a misdemeanor.
That was the law before a year and a half ago. Then the law got changed to include stolen metal of any dollar value.
“But in the case of stolen scrap metal there is no dollar value requirement so that allows us to charge people with a felonies when they are selling stolen scrap metal or stolen wire and that’s been a significant help.”
So that loop hole was closed.. On Thursday, Governor Granholm signed a new law. It could close another loop hole. Police can go after the big scrap dealers who’ve been buying from individual scrappers for years. Detroit Senator Buzz Thomas sponsored the legislation.
“Folks are gonna have to start proving ownership of that and there will be a waiting period before people can get paid if they don’t have that ownership. There will be a provision for a tagging period and a holding period so that law enforcement has the proper time and then yeah. There will be a punishment for people who are knowingly accepting stolen merchandise. Unfortunately, we know who they are.”
Thomas says large, expensive homes in the upscale neighborhoods of Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest and Green Acres have been hit hard.
“Three years ago houses were selling from $300,000 to $500-600,000. Some of those neighborhoods, University district as an example, has more than 150 of their 1,200 houses that are abandoned, foreclosed, many of them have been stripped of their copper, all of the great things that made these great historic homes. But they’re empty, vacant properties.”
These grand homes are enticing to some suburbanites and out of towners. Their destruction might make people dream less about fixing up Detroit.
“You gotta completely redo all of the plumbing, you gotta completely redo all of the heating and cooling that has been taken out and as a result now the economics don’t make any sense for doing that deal and that does happen because we’re letting scrappers come in.”
To see what someone dealing in illegal metals looks like, go to 36th district court Tuesday morning and look for 60 year old William Charles Heany. He’s facing up to 5 years in prison for allegedly buying stolen tools at his own plumbing supply shop on Gratiot Avenue.
