“Nuisance” Houses in Morningside Still Neglected by Land Bank

DLBA flyers such as this one has appeared on blighted houses recently. Image courtesy of Nicoletta Valenzano

If you have walked around the neighborhood recently, you may have noticed a few new additions to the blighted houses: signs from the Detroit Land Bank Authority stating that they own many of them.

Over the past few editions, we explored the ongoing situation with Blake Mikus and his properties in Morningside, shedding light on the challenges his neglected properties pose for our neighborhood, and how the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) has been trying to use their Nuisance Abatement process to take ownership of them. As the process has dragged on, properties have remained in limbo—further deteriorating while responsibility for their upkeep is contested.

But what does DLBA ownership mean for these blighted properties? If the current DLBA-owned properties in Morningside are any indication, it probably means that not much will change.

“Decrease Blight & Increase Occupancy,” the tagline of the DLBA, seems to be quite an overstatement these days. Many of the DLBA-owned properties in Morningside have sat in limbo for months if not years on end, with no “increased occupancy” in sight.

In fact, in the most recent quarterly report from the DLBA, they stated that they currently own 66,177 properties in Detroit, but in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, they only sold 784 of them. If you do the math, that means they are selling less than 5% of their inventory every year, while they continue to take on more and more properties on top of those.

The report also stated that their team only listed 1.4% of their vacant lots for sale, leaving residents to question why they don’t list more, and what they could possibly be planning to do with the other 60,250.

Now, the DLBA sitting on properties such as this would be okay if they kept them up, but if their current properties in Morningside are any indication, that is a far-fetched dream.

Just this fall, I noticed that a DLBA-owned house on my block received a blight ticket, demonstrating that the land bank is just as neglectful as the slumlord investors they claim to be holding accountable.

If the DLBA is here to rescue blighted properties from investors like Blake Mikus, when the DLBA becomes the largest property owner in Morningside, who will save us from them?