Quicken Loans Community Fund keeps Detroit families in their homes
The lender’s multi-tiered program counsels homeowners on filing tax-exemption forms and helps renters buy their dwellings out of foreclosure. The program—a win/win for families and local government—warrants honors for PR Daily’s 2020 Corporate Responsibility Award for Corporate-Community or Nonprofit Partnership.
Anytime a family avoids a tax foreclosure, it’s a win for that family, the neighborhood and the municipality.
It’s one less family left without the security of a home, one less property at risk of speculation or blight. It’s also a huge cost savings—by one estimate $96,000—for residents, the county and the municipality.
Quicken Loans Community Fund (QLCF) partners with 30-plus community organizations to knock on the doors of 60,000 Detroit families behind on their taxes. The surveyors in the Neighbor to Neighbor program live in those very neighborhoods, so the conversations prompt meaningful action.
From that outreach, Quicken found that over 75% of homeowners behind on property taxes should have been eligible for an exemption. In response, it developed monthly workshops to give city resident direct assistance with exemption applications.
Quicken has helped nearly 9,000 Detroit families avoid tax foreclosure in two years.
Additionally, over 1,100 renters and low-income homeowners have been served through the Make it Home program, which uses philanthropic funds to buy homes out of tax foreclosure and offers them to the occupants for under $7,000 over one year.
View More Corporate Social Responsibility Awards 2020 Winners.
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