I was given a house for free – but it already belonged to someone else

When I put the house on the market, I uncovered a story of a Black woman losing her home to municipal greed

• This story is published in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Bridge Detroit

Miraculously, Tomeka Langford is willing to talk to me.

The 47-year-old Black woman is a long-standing Detroiter. A career pharm tech with four kids and six grandkids, her family has lived in the city ever since her grandparents came up from the south.