DETROIT – Just days before leaving office to focus on his campaign for governor of Michigan, outgoing Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan highlighted his administration’s historic achievement of eliminating approximately 47,000 abandoned homes across the city during a press conference held on Monday. He also pledged to continue investigations into contaminated soil suspected of being used to backfill the basements of some demolished homes.

When Duggan took office at the beginning of 2014, the city’s Detroit Land Bank Authority owned roughly 47,000 vacant houses. Today, that number has dropped to 942 homes, only 240 of which are slated for demolition.

Detroit spent $500 million to remove 46,000 abandoned homes in 12 years

Duggan said that over the past 12 years, the city demolished 27,000 vacant homes and sold nearly 19,000 others to investors who rehabilitated them. He projected that the Land Bank’s housing inventory would be completely exhausted within the next year.

According to official data, the cost of this effort has exceeded $500 million. About half of that amount came from federal grants targeted at communities hardest hit by the 2008 foreclosure crisis, while the remaining funding was covered through $250 million in municipal bonds approved by Detroit voters under Proposal N in 2020.

Duggan described the effort as a “successful historic undertaking”, saying it has “reshaped many Detroit neighborhoods for the better”, contributed to lower crime rates and increased property values citywide.

The mayor acknowledged that the demolition program was marred by alleged fraudulent schemes, noting that Detroit Police continue to investigate claims that some contractors used contaminated soil at demolition sites.

“As we have done over the past 12 years, we will test every site suspected of having contaminated fill, immediately remove any unacceptable soil and seek to recover the costs from the responsible contractor,” Duggan said.

Duggan, who is completing his third and final term at the end of this year and is running  for governor as an independent after leaving the Democratic Party, said the city hired Mannik & Smith Group, an environmental consulting firm, to test each demolished site individually using funds from Proposal N.

He added that the city has so far removed contaminated materials from 58 sites and continues to investigate dozens of other suspect locations. Duggan said his administration has suspended work with Iron Horse, the company that supplied contaminated soil to several contractors from its facility in Milford Township. He also confirmed that test results have been submitted to Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) for further investigation.

Iron Horse supplied soil to 424 demolition sites in Detroit for four different contractors, including 94 sites handled by Gayanga, a local contracting company. Detroit’s Office of the Inspector General suspects that Gayanga intentionally used contaminated backfill materials from unapproved sources.