"Clean Up - Cook Out" event for Vee Henry in response to ATF foreclosure battle

EVENT: Saturday, May 11 at 12pm,  "Clean Up - Cook Out" event  for Vee Henry in response to  ATF foreclosure battle

Location: 395 Maple St, Rochester

        A year ago Virginia "Vee" Henry promised her dying brother Buddy that she would carry on his dream of creating a homeless shelter and youth outreach program in his two story building at 395 Maple Street in Rochester.  Since then, a perfect storm of city cost-saving measures, privately executed tax liabilities, and the possible machinations of a mysterious but well-connected real-estate investor challenged that dream.  But Vee Henry's dedication has not wavered.  This Saturday, May 11 at 12pm, Henry will be hosting a volunteer "Clean Up - Cook Out" event at her beleaguered building at 395 Maple St, Rochester, where volunteers will be repairing some of damage done to her property by vandals during her year long foreclosure battle, and Vee will be available for questions about her case.

Detailed Background Below including quotes and photo:

Business Woman Fights American Tax Funding to Honor Brother's Memory

“Before he died, my brother was building a homeless shelter called City of Angels, for the people that House of Mercy doesn’t have room for. I loved my brother.  My brother Buddy was one of the best people in the whole world.  In his deathbed, he asked me to use everything he had left to make this happen.  It’s hard work and it’s devastating to me sometimes, but I’m going to finish it.”

And so Vee Henry inherited her brother’s dream.  But she also inherited the tax debt Buddy had accumulated during his two-year fight against cancer. Now, because of the involvement of a Florida bank, American Tax Funding, Henry’s labor of love for her brother stands empty, subject to periodic raids from vandals and thieves stealing copper.

Virginia "Vee" Henry pointing out hole where copper thieves have pulled wire from her brother's homeless shelter wall.

Henry was first notified in February 2013 that a tax lien on the building had been transferred to American Tax Funding.  “ATF offered me a deal: $5000 a month for a $117,000 debt. Who can afford $5000 a month? I rejected their initial offer, expecting them to meet me halfway in negotiations. Within two weeks of that conversation, an auction date was set.  We talked some after that, but I always got the same feeling.  They really didn’t want to deal with me.”

Rochester’s involvement with ATF goes back only 4 years.  As such, the city is still investigating how this effort at cost-saving through privatization is working.  In February of this year, the city heard back from a panel of experts it hired to investigate the firm.  What were the benefits of allowing banks like ATF to handle tax debt?  2 cents on the dollar saved in processing costs and another 2 cents on the dollar in revenue collected.  A 4% gain isn’t horrible, but that wasn’t all the commision was hired to look at.

Most of the panel’s report had citizens like Ms. Henry in mind.  Considering the impact of ATF’s actions on the communities where tax foreclosures are concentrated, the report unequivocally stated that the political cost of maintaining a relationship with ATF wasn’t worth the minimal gains in recovered revenue.  So why would the city continue to associate with this company?

David Tolar, a local housing rights advocate with Take Back the Land, injected some dark humor into the situation. “ATF is not very good at answering the phone.  If you want to deal with them you have to go to their lawyer’s office, Philip Lytle, at the top floor of 28 Main St.  Even if you figure that out, most people don’t know their rights or how much power they have to negotiate legally.”

After weeks of navigating that maze, Vee thought she saw an end.  She accepted new terms, a $62,000 pay-off within 3 months, in spite of concerns that this would not be enough time to apply with other lenders to cover the lump sum.  But when she brought a down payment of $5000 to Philip Lytle’s law firm, she was turned away.  Days later, Vee attended the public auction of her property by ATF.

“I’ve been to these before.  Usually, details of the auctioned property are made public.  They didn’t do that for mine.  So no one bids on it at first.  I’m there with Christian Leo, from Philip Lytle’s office, who calls someone in by name after all of the other bidders have left.  This guy bids unopposed from ATF for $60,000 and gets it when was about to pay $65,000.  I try to talk to the him, and he just laughs at me and offers to sell it back for $500,000.  I don't know for sure who that was, but 2 years ago, Seneca Solar was using this address. I suspect the bidder was connected with them.”

When you see the end effects, with city-sponsored development plans for neighborhoods like Ms. Henry’s that require more vacant property then there already is, ATF begins to look more like part of an economic bulldozer, clearing the way for people who generate more tax revenue to move in.  Maybe that’s not the intent of anyone in ATF’s Miami headquarters, or in Rochester City Hall, but to someone like Virginia Henry that’s what it looks like from the perspective of the people losing homes and businesses in these neighborhoods.