Going, Going, Gone: Selling Out the Homeowners

Susan Hamilton

Inequities in housing conditions and political power among neighborhoods in a small, economically distressed city have been aggravated by a strategy of auctioning tax-delinquent properties. The city’s auction policies and their implementation are so flawed that they are reducing already low rates of homeownership, adding to the proliferation of vacant buildings and aggravating the financial losses from a shrinking tax base. These negative consequences disproportionately affect residents of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

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