Fowler Lies
Rev. Faith Fowler has been working to evict Taura Brown from her Tiny Home for more than two years. Taura Brown moved into her Tiny Home in December, 2019. She had been diagnosed with advanced kidney disease, needs dialysis twice a week and that’s why she qualified to live in the Tiny Home. Rev. Faith Fowler, head of Cass Community Social Services (CCSS), raised more than $2 million from charitable and public sources to start the Tiny Homes project, which Fowler promised was a “path to home ownership” for people facing or experiencing homelessness. Taura Brown believed this promise and moved into a Tiny Home.
There are 25 Tiny Homes with more planned. When Taura Brown moved in, she started organizing with her neighbors, started a newsletter and pressed Faith Fowler for specific details on home ownership. Fowler’s promise and pledge was that if a resident lived in the Tiny Home for 7 years and paid the monthly rent, then the resident would own the home. The rent of Taura Brown’s place is $317 a month, but when Taura Brown started asking questions and making complaints about Fowler having no intention of carrying through on the home ownership pledge, Fowler moved to evict her. Taura Brown’s fight against that eviction has gone on for more than two years and continues with the next court hearing on March 17th by Zoom at 36th District Court.
In a recent Detroit News article by Sarah Rahal, “Detroit’s tiny homes promised a path to ownership. It hasn’t been fully paved.pdf”, Rev. Faith Fowler admits that she has no plans to carry through on the “path to homeownership” for residents of Tiny Homes. After two years of attempting to silence and evict Taura Brown for speaking up, Fowler now admits that Taura Brown had it right all along.
According to the Detroit News article, Fowler says “they haven’t determined how to transfer ownership to those eligible.” Three residents are on pace to own their homes by September, 2024. Fowler says, “We didn’t have everything figured out because we didn’t have any experience.” Fowler and her United Methodist Church and CCSS have raised more than $2 million for a “charity initiative” that seeks to provide home ownership for Tiny Homes resident. Now, many years after Fowler raised these funds, the Tiny Homes were build and residents moved in, Fowler says “The Cass Community nonprofit has formed a committee of tenants, lawyers and financial advisers to determine that path.”
“The initiative is struggling to figure out how to handle transfers of ownership.” Taura Brown pays $317 per month for 7 years for a total of $26,628. At the end of 7 years, Taura Brown owns the home. She paid for it and bought it like any other land contract. At the end of 7 years, CCSS and Fowler deed the property and transfer ownership to Taura Brown or any other resident who has completed the 7 years. This should be a deed from CCSS to the new owner, transferring ownership of the home and the land. This is not complicated. It’s simple.
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Fowler claims, “The options are: A quit claim deed which would transfer the house and land to the resident with minimal paperwork. The drawbacks are there may be a gift tax involved since the new owners didn’t pay for the homes and would be non-community control.” This is the key and a total lie. Taura Brown pays $26,628 over 7 years to purchase her home, like any other land contract or purchase agreement. There is no “gift tax” involved, because this is a purchase, not a damn gift. The “no community control” is the real issue here. Fowler does not want to give up control of the Tiny Homes. Fowler wants to maintain control of the Tiny Homes and the residents.
Fowler wants to renege on her promises. That’s what Taura Brown has been pointing out for more than two years. That’s why Fowler has attacked Taura Brown, filed an eviction action and a defamation lawsuit against Taura Brown. Fowler lies, and Taura Brown has been calling her out.
“No matter what,” Fowler says: “they will own the house, have the ability to sell the house and use the home as collateral, leave it in their will to someone they want to love or benefit.” Then why is Fowler spending tens of thousands of donor and public dollars to pay high priced attorneys like Todd Perkins to evict and file defamation lawsuits against Taura Brown in an all out effort to silence her? Todd Perkins, the attorney who represents Fowler and leads the attacks on Taura Brown and others, says: “How do we get these homes to someone without having them incur the tax implications? There are tangential issues as well,” he said: “ … including: Do you want the culture of the community to stay the same?”
There are no “tax implications” in the transfer of the deed, because residents after 7 years have purchased the home. And when the resident becomes the homeowner, then the resident will be responsible for property taxes like any other homeowner. Most residents are low income and will likely qualify for property tax exemption based on income. When Perkins talks about “culture of the community to stay the same,” he’s talking about Faith Fowler maintaining control of the community, preventing residents from having free speech and discriminating against residents like Taura Brown who dare to speak their minds or make complaints or hold Fowler to her agreement on home ownership. Perkins is the paid agent to push and cover for Fowler’s racist, elitist white savior agenda.
Fowler goes on to say: “We have people offering to buy them outright at $70,000 — $90,000.” “At least one resident has asked “Will it become a gentrified neighborhood? and will that be a bad thing to have a mixture of people economically? I think the community has to wrestle with that.” Understand what Fowler is saying here: she raised $2 million to build Tiny Homes on the promise, pledge and agreement that this was path to home ownership and that residents would own the home after paying rent for 7 years. Fowler and her attorney Perkins seem to be looking for ways to cash in, maybe sell the homes at the highest price, maybe work on gentrifying the neighborhood. This is raising funds on false pretenses. They are raising funds claiming they are for a path to home ownership for people who are without housing or facing homelessness, and then when the 7 years is abot up, moving to evict Taura Brown who asks question. And now floating the idea of selling these houses on the market to the highest bidder.
As Bankole Thompson said when he interviewed Taura Brown after this Detroit News article ran: “This is a scandal.” This is a scandal for Taura Brown and the other residents who relied on the pledge of home ownership after 7 years. It’s a scandal for every individual or group who donated funds to build the Tiny Homes based on the path to home
ownership pledge. It’s a scandal that the City of Detroit funds Fowler and CCSS with millions, while Fowler carries out her racist schemes, her false pledges, her lies, her attacks on Taura Brown and other residents, and on the other people who rely on services Fowler and CCSS are pledged and required to provide.
