The Low-Rent Trap

Tenants of the Detroit Housing Commission live in some of the only housing in the city guaranteed to be affordable. But properties owned by the authority keep failing inspections and homes and complexes across the city are falling apart

A view of the Diggs Homes, a Detroit Housing Commission property that failed its last three inspections. Photo credit: Nick Hagen

Outlier Media is taking a closer look at the city’s largest provider of affordable housing: The Detroit Housing Commission. Through a series of articles, we examine whether the authority is providing safe and affordable housing at properties it owns, how it manages its housing voucher program and if it’s accessible to the public.

Read the series

Part 1

Answering the biggest questions about the Detroit Housing Commission

The DHC is the largest provider of affordable housing in the city — and has a waitlist 80,000 people deep

by Aaron Mondry May 3, 2023May 15, 2023

Part 2

Floods, rats and no hot water: Detroit Housing Commission properties have failed inspections for years

Tenants feel trapped in apartments they can’t afford to leave and say the city’s largest affordable housing provider is not adequately fixing its homes

by Aaron Mondry and Rukiya Colvin May 10, 2023May 15, 2023

Part 3

How does the Detroit Housing Commission’s leader explain agency failures?

“We have to do a whole lot better,” CEO Sandra Henriquez says

by Aaron Mondry May 15, 2023

Part 4

Thousands of Detroiters wait for affordable housing while agency sits on hundreds of empty apartments

More than one in five Detroit Housing Commission units are vacant, far higher than the federal requirement

by Aaron Mondry May 24, 2023June 13, 2023

Part 5

The housing commission is the landlord for thousands of Detroiters, but it rarely answers tenants’ calls

Closed doors and unanswered questions: Tenants struggle to get ahold of Detroit Housing Commission

by Malak Silmi and Aaron Mondry May 31, 2023May 30, 2023

Part 6

Tenants, landlords and staffers agree: Detroit’s Section 8 program is broken

Renters can’t get housing and landlords don’t get paid as staffers struggle with mounting caseloads

by Aaron Mondry June 14, 2023June 14, 2023

Part 7

The Detroit Housing Commission is failing. So are those in charge of its oversight

Officials and board members have yet to require significant reforms at Detroit’s largest provider of affordable housing, despite serious problems at the agency

by Aaron Mondry July 5, 2023October 30, 2023

How It Started

Behind a two-year investigation into ‘alarming’ conditions at the Detroit Housing Commission

“There was a tenant from the Villages at Parkside that mentioned some really alarming things about the property’s condition, like serious roof and safety issues,” Rukiya Colvin said. “It kind of raised my alarm bells. I started to get a little nosy and see what was happening.”

by Aaron Mondry May 17, 2023May 17, 2023

Detroit Housing Commission (DHC) by the numbers

Nearly 10,000 Detroit households rent in units owned by the DHC or have vouchers it supplies
The DHC owns about 25% of the city’s regulated affordable housing stock
The DHC has an ownership stake in 42 different developments, including 207 single-family homes
80,000 people (more than 12% of the city’s population) are on waitlists across all DHC properties
750 of the DHC’s 3,409 units (nearly 22%) are vacant
4,200 people are on the Section 8 waitlist with an expected wait time of two to five years
Six DHC properties received failing scores when inspections were last conducted for HUD in 2019