10 GROUNDCOVER NEWS SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION AUGUST 21, 2026 When Grandma's house isn't really anyone's house: what Washtenaw County can learn from Detroit COLLEEN SADOWS Groundcover contributor A community proposal out of Wayne State's School of Social Work offers a mutual aid model for "heirs' property," which happens when someone dies without a will specifying who actually owns a piece of property. The proposal has lessons for Washtenaw County's aging homeowners and housing advocates. If you've never heard the term "heirs' property," you're not alone — but you've probably driven past a house that has it. It happens when someone dies without a will, or without updating one, and a home passes informally to descendants without any legal paperwork sorting out who actually owns it. No single heir holds a clear title. Instead, the family is left with what's called a "tangled title" — and with it, a cascade of problems: no eligibility for home repair loans, no ability to sell or refinance, vulnerability to tax foreclosure, and an open door for predatory investors or deed fraud. The proposal, "Project Heirs' Property Reclaimed," lays out a community-based mutual aid model to address this problem among Black elders in Detroit. While the pilot is designed for Detroit, the underlying problem and the solution travel well beyond Wayne County. Washtenaw County has its own aging housing stock, its own history of racially exclusionary lending, and its own elders quietly sitting on tangled titles they may not even know they have. For local housing advocates, legal aid groups and elder-services agencies, this proposal is worth a close read. Scale of the problem The proposal cites 2024 Detroit Future City (Keeping Your Family Home: Addressing the Challenges of Inherited Properties in Detroit), an analysis finding more than 5,500 Detroit properties where every recorded owner had died between 2014 and 2022, all of which were confirmed heirs' properties. These properties often end up tangled in legal limbo, leaving families vulnerable to losing their homes and becoming displaced; underscoring the urgency of reaching people with interventions like this one before that happens. The pattern reflects systemic, oppressive practices that have displaced people for generations. We need to reach people with this proposed intervention before they lose their homes. This is shining a light on systemic, oppressive practices that have intentionally displaced people for generations. That's just one city. Heirs' property is recognized nationally as a major driver of Black land and wealth loss, rooted in a long history of exclusion from formal legal and estate-planning systems. Legal scholar Brenda Gibson calls it not just a legal problem, but a racial wealth problem — land that should be building generational stability instead sits frozen in legal limbo, unable to be borrowed against, repaired or passed on cleanly to the next generation. For elders in particular, the stakes are high. Heirs' property complications often surface right when a family most needs stability, after a death, during a health crisis or when a home repair becomes urgent. Losing clear ownership can mean losing eligibility for home repair grants, losing the ability to age in place, and in the worst cases, losing the home altogether to tax foreclosure or a lowball buyout from a speculator. What the model proposes Rather than treating this purely as a legal problem to be solved case-bycase by lawyers only, the Wayne State proposal builds something closer to a peer support and case management network. This is grounded in what social workers call empowerment theory, which centers the idea that people experiencing a systemic problem know their own situation best, and that lasting change comes from building their power and knowledge rather than simply "fixing" things on their behalf. This model has a few pieces that could translate directly to Washtenaw County: A "concierge" connector between elders and pro bono attorneys. Rather than expecting people to find and vet a lawyer on their own, a trusted community organization does that matching, plus tracks each case over time so nothing falls through the cracks. Meetings where people already gather. The proposal recommends holding legal clinics and "will clinics" not in law offices, but at libraries, community colleges, faith congregations, senior programs, barbershops, beauty salons and community innovation hubs. In Detroit, that includes places like the Durfee Innovation Society. For Washtenaw County, that could mean senior centers, the district library branches, or partnerships with congregations. Small mutual aid groups, not oneoff workshops. Over a 90-day cycle, groups of 5-10 elders meet biweekly, alternating between peer support sessions and one-on-one legal or case management meetings. The idea is that isolation is itself a barrier: when people realize their neighbor is dealing with the same "tangled title" problem, shame and secrecy give way to shared problem-solving. A trauma-informed, non-judgmental approach to family conflict. Heirs' property disputes often surface old family wounds (who cared for a parent, who paid the bills, who was absent). The proposal explicitly plans for "monopolizer," "quiet member," and family-conflict dynamics, and builds in referrals to mediation and family therapy rather than assuming the legal solution is the only fix needed. Attention to trust and history, not just paperwork. The proposal repeatedly returns to the fact that Black elders have well-earned reasons to distrust systems that have historically taken advantage of them, through redlining, discriminatory lending and predatory land practices. Any intervention has to build trust before it asks people to disclose vulnerable legal or financial information, and confidentiality has to remain firmly in participants' own hands. Washtenaw County doesn't have Detroit's scale of heirs' property, but it has its own version of the underlying problem: aging homeowners, family homes passed down informally, and a widening gap between people who can afford estate planning and people who can't. Local organizations that work with elders — from Meals on Wheels-type senior services to housing counseling agencies and legal aid — may be encountering "tangled titles" in their casework without a formal name or referral pathway for it. Recommendations for local agencies and advocates S-creening for heirs' property could be built into existing senior services. Housing counselors, home repair grant programs, and Meals on Wheelsstyle check-in visits are all points of contact where a tangled title might surface — but only if staff know to ask. Pro bono legal partnerships are replicable. Washtenaw County already has legal aid infrastructure and law school partnerships (University of Michigan, plus Wayne State's reach Detroit Future City 2024 report can be read at detroitfuturecity. com/resources/research/ into the region) that could support a rotating pro bono attorney model similar to the one proposed here. Community-based, not officebased, service delivery matters. Meeting people in libraries, churches and community centers, rather than requiring them to seek out a legal office, removes a major access barrier, especially for elders with transportation or mobility limitations. Peer support reduces shame and secrecy. Isolation compounds legal problems. A model that connects elders facing similar issues, even informally, can surface problems earlier — before a tax foreclosure notice arrives. The bigger picture The proposal frames heirs' property as more than an individual legal snag; it's a social determinant of health. Chronic stress from housing insecurity, fear of losing a family home and the strain of unresolved family conflict all take a toll on elders' well-being. Addressing the legal tangle isn't just about protecting a deed; it's about protecting the stability, dignity and health of the people who live in that home. As heirs' property gains more attention statewide, through reforms like the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act and USDA re-lending programs, models like this one suggest that legal reform alone isn't enough. It takes community infrastructure: trusted messengers, culturally responsive facilitation, and a willingness to treat land, housing and family relationships as one connected ecosystem, not separate problems to be solved in isolation. For Washtenaw County's network of elder services, housing advocates and legal aid organizations, this Detroitborn model offers a blueprint worth studying — and maybe worth adapting, one community meeting at a time. The full "Project Heirs' Property Reclaimed" proposal was developed by an MSW student as a collaborative coursework project at Wayne State University's School of Social Work.
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