But then there are owners like Mr. Ford who desperately want to stay. Political leaders here acknowledge that the flood of tax foreclosures has become a problem, and say they are making efforts to improve the situation by lowering property assessments — and thus tax bills — and by trying to help people find steady incomes. But it may not be enough.

“This whole ecosystem has to be rethought if we’re going to be effective and sustainable going forward,” said Matt Cullen, a business executive who took part in a task force, begun by the White House, aimed at solving Detroit’s crisis of blighted neighborhoods and abandoned and dilapidated buildings. “How important is it to take it back on taxes? At what point should you be really working hard with the owner to keep them in? Fundamentally, if you take the people out of the home, almost invariably the home ends up being blighted and taken down.”

Forty-five years ago, Mr. Ford’s family bought the 1920s-era house for about $17,000. But in recent years, Mr. Ford said he had struggled to find work and pay even his immediate bills — for electricity and food — much less overdue property taxes. Though he was hired in June to do demolition work, Mr. Ford said he did not have the more than $7,000 he owed in back taxes since 2010 and in interest and fees, which now amount to 30 percent of that total bill. This winter, he found a plastic sack hanging on the front door, alerting him that the house was to be foreclosed on for taxes. It will most likely be sold at auction this fall unless he finds the money. The bags speckle the neighborhoods here during certain seasons. “All the wind came out of me when I saw that,” Mr. Ford said. “I’ve been here since I was 3. My focus is on finding a way to keep it. But if not, where will I be? I don’t know.”

In 1999, Michigan changed the way its localities dealt with people who failed to pay property taxes. State lawmakers ended a system of tax liens in which the rights to collect debts were sold to investors, but which often left the titles of properties murky and, in the time-consuming process, left properties to decay. Under the new method, homeowners who fell three years behind could expect to lose their homes.