ABA Impound lines a thread of train tracks that cut through Joy Road in northwest Detroit. The lot’s lone building sits at the end of an innocuous lane, entirely fenced in. On a Friday morning in July, around 20 people gathered under the slate gray morning sky to bid on a slew of abandoned vehicles being auctioned off by city police.
Detroit launched a campaign in April to clear the city’s streets of abandoned vehicles, considering them a blight to neighborhoods and in some cases, a danger. Ticketing of these vehicles ramped up ahead of Detroit’s 2024 national spotlight — the NFL draft — and the problem was a tenet of Mayor Mike Duggan’s State of the City address in April.
But where do the city’s abandoned vehicles actually end up? Many get moved by their owners after the initial ticket, and those that don’t enter a pipeline, headed for sale and scrap.
The auction crowd, almost all male, followed the police around as they called off numbered cars on the lot, with each bid starting at the amount of the towing and storage fees left on the vehicle. The men joshed each other and their officers with a familiar rapport. An auction like this takes place somewhere in the state almost every day. It tends to be the same people surveying cars and making bids, most employed by a scrapyard or buying to fix-up and resell the vehicles. Several men carry clipboards. One wears a bluetooth earpiece.
“Never buy a car from here. You’ve got better odds at the casino,” Tony Nastasi, a buyer for Ryan’s Auto Parts, said under a gruff white mustache. “And we don’t win much at the casino.”
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Complaints of abandoned vehicles in the Improve Detroit system have seen a sustained surge starting in summer 2019, as the city rolled out their own towing operation to bring the vehicles in and put together an Abandoned Vehicle Task Force made up of traffic cops and preemptive code enforcers. Rather than waiting for complaints from neighbors, these people are employed by the city to search for violations. Improve Detroit tracks removal requests from community members as well as most of the tickets issued from the task force.
From the start of the year to April 17, when the mayor announced a crackdown on vehicle blight, the city had ticketed more than 5,000 vehicles in neighborhoods on streets and on private property, like lawns or unpaved residential property areas. Owners have 48 hours to move them from public spaces and two weeks from private property. Less than 800 were actually towed — 85% were moved by owners.
The mayor said during his address that the epiphany to “finally rid Detroit of the abandoned illegal vehicles” came during a conversation with a constituent in a neighborhood on Detroit’s west side. The woman pointed out the vehicle blight around her home and said her grandchildren, who live in Farmington Hills, had noticed it on their visits, too. Improve Detroit abandoned vehicle complaints span the city, but have historically been concentrated in west side neighborhoods.
In the weeks following Mayor Duggan’s announcement and prior to the NFL draft, Improve Detroit complaint numbers jumped again. They have since petered back to numbers comparable to the same month in prior years. The mayor’s plan to address the problem involved hiring 12 more code enforcement officers in addition to a 20-person municipal parking team. The team prioritizes private property with commercial vehicles like semi-trucks stored illegally in residential areas, or multiple cars parked on the lawn.
The Free Press requested the number of vehicles ticketed and towed since the State of the City address from the Detroit Police Department through a Freedom of Information Act request on July 15, but the department has yet to provide the data. The department has confirmed receipt of the request but provided no further updates.
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The cars that end up at auction are considered abandoned by the city. That determination is made in stages. First the vehicle is impounded, which can happen for a variety of reasons — if someone files an abandoned vehicle complaint with Improve Detroit or if it was illegally parked on a street or yard, for example. Police ticket vehicles that have been on public or private property for more than 48 hours without moving and appear “unclaimed, discarded, deserted or abandoned.” If owners don’t move the ticketed vehicles, they’ll end up impounded. After a week, if no one has laid claim and paid towage and storage fees, the vehicle is considered abandoned. It is then eligible for auction. Owners can claim the vehicle up until its time of sale.
After a mandatory five days of advertising, that vehicle will end up on an auction list and usually hits the sale lot two or three weeks after entering abandoned status. If they don’t get sold at auction, the vehicles live out their last days at a scrapyard. The auction crop tends to be vehicles that have been involved in accidents and left on the side of the highway, or run themselves out of commission years ago. They’re good for parts — but not much else, Nastasi said. A few have the potential to be spruced up and re-sold.
One hundred and twenty eight vehicles were up for auction on the 12th, but only 18 sold. Few raked in more than $2,000. The belle of the auction was a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee, marked for sale with a neon orange 51, its list number. The final ticket price was $11,000, offered up by one of the pick-a-part buyers.
If vehicles get a bite at auction, any amount bidders pay over towage and storage fees goes back to the state of Michigan to be distributed to the last known owner. The money goes into the lost and found fund, which can end up on Michigan’s unclaimed property site. Through mid July, the city passed along nearly $650,000 in excess abandoned vehicle sales revenue. To see if you have any dollars due to you from the state, search the database here.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit’s abandoned vehicles push: What happens after cars are towed
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