Events this week focus on overtaxed Detroiters

Three events scheduled for this week focus on the issue of over-assessment of housing values in Detroit and how it has hurt homeowners. 

On Monday, The PuLSE Institute, an anti-poverty think tank, will hold a panel discussion with U.S. Rep Rashida Tlaib; D-Detroit, Pastor Solomon Kinloch Jr. of Triumph Church in Detroit; PuLSE President Tina Patterson; and Sam Riddle, a political consultant who hosts a show on 910AM Superstation. It runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The event will be held at the Wayne County Community College District, at 1001 W. Fort, downtown Detroit in the Frank Hayden Room, 236. A similar discussion was held last month.

On Wednesday, there will be another forum on assessments, foreclosures, auctions and evictions. That event sponsored by Building The Engine of Community Development in Detroit, which is a community-building initiative sponsored by several nonprofits. 

It will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Adam Butzel Recreation Center, 10500 Lyndon, in Detroit. 

And on Friday, the activist group Call-'Em Out plan a protest at 10 a.m. outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center downtown. 

The Detroit News published an investigation in January that found City Hall overtaxed homeowners by at least $600 million between 2010 and 2016 after officials failed to accurately bring down property values in the years following the recession.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has acknowledged the past overassessment but said he cleaned up the practice and lowered values after he took office in 2014. The mayor said he can't correct past mistakes because current law doesn't allow it and the city can't afford it.

cmacdonald@detroitnews.com