DETROIT, MI - The numbers are staggering. Detroit has an estimated 79,000 vacant properties. Wayne County has about 43,000 homes that are at risk of tax foreclosure and inclusion in a 2013 property auction. At the most recent Wayne County foreclosure auction, the largest in the world, 8,000 tax-foreclosed properties went unsold despite a starting bid of just $500.

It's no secret that Detroit’s empty properties are directly correlated with higher crime rates and a lower quality of life. So what can be done?

Last night more than 200 people met to discuss just that, at a meeting led by Jerry Paffendorf at Café con Leche del Este.

Paffendorf’s

is responsible for the

website, which no doubt was tedious to build but the end result has had and should continue to have a huge payoff for the city: Every single property that was going to auction is listed on the site, so for the first time ever residents can see what’s happening around them. Paffendorf said he’s heard tales of people actually seeing via the site that a home they were renting was about to be sold, unbeknownst to them, for example.

For the recent auction, Wayne County Deputy Treasurer David Szymanski said the county has offered the 8,000 properties that did not sell back to the cities where they were foreclosed on. If the cities accept them, then the deeds will be signed over to those municipalities.

But Szymanski told Mlive Wednesday afternoon that it appears unlikely that Detroit will accept the properties, though he has yet to receive a definite answer. In the past, cities have not wanted to shoulder the liability for the abandoned properties. In that case, the properties will become the Michigan Land Bank’s responsibility, and that organization will try to find owners for them.

On Wednesday night, Szymanski also told the group gathered at Cafe con Leche del Este that the county

through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority that can go toward helping people to pay their delinquent taxes.

Szymanski said the country tells people to stay in their homes as long as legally possible. “Until the judge tells you you have to leave the home, you don’t have to leave the home,” he said.

Until properties from the recent auction are sorted out, Loveland Technologies will be focused on foreclosure prevention, staff member Alex Alsup said Wednesday night.

A large part of that will be educating the some 43,000 residents at risk of losing their homes to tax foreclosure. Alsup said that in the past some homeowners have thought that they could buy their house back in the second round of the auction at less what they owe in taxes, “an extremely risky proposition.”

Loveland Technologies will also put together an interactive map of these 43,000 properties. In the meantime, Alsup said that thousands of the properties' tax issues are likely to be addressed on their accord before a March 31 deadline.

To see how vast amounts of Detroiters got into this situation in the first place, one need only Google "Detroit economy. “

The city had an influx of of jobs and people through the mid-20th century but has since lost more than half of its peak population. Paffendorf likens it to a flash mob that has come and gone. Unemployment rates in metro Detroit

.

Meanwhile, thousands of Detroit properties will once again surface in the 2013 auction, and thousands more remain empty.

Audience members grasped for ideas as to what to do with this emptiness Wednesday night, with the thought of crowd-funding to buy all of the tax foreclosed properties once again being briefly tossed around. The idea of pooling money together to buy all of the properties has ultimately been shied away from though, mainly because of liability concerns.

Deconstruction is another real possibility that is already happening on a small scale, but that effort leaves the question as to what can be done with the vacant lots after the homes are removed.

In any case, the interest in the city's massive blight problem was evident Wednesday night, and the diverse crowd agreed at the end of the two-hour long meeting that similar discussions should be held soon.

What do you think are some of the best courses of action for Detroit's vacant homes and vast emptiness? Share your thoughts or ideas in the comment section below.