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Council authorizes vendor to improve foreclosure outreach; city to test third‑party skip tracing for one year
Summary
The council approved a one‑year agreement to hire a vendor to perform skip tracing and door-posting to improve outreach to delinquent property owners and reduce inadvertent foreclosures; the administration will compare vendor results to prior city-led outreach.
The council authorized a one‑year agreement to hire a vendor to perform skip tracing and direct outreach intended to ensure delinquent property owners receive foreclosure notices and have an opportunity to cure delinquencies before properties are sold.
Director Jones told the committee the vendor will search for accurate phone numbers and email addresses and post notices to property doors as needed. "In the past, we've had problems sometimes with outreach to our delinquent property owners... Property owners come back and say, you know, we never received notice," Jones said, and described the vendor as a way to "go the extra mile" beyond written letters to reduce inadvertent foreclosures.
Council members asked whether city staff previously did door‑to‑door outreach; Jones replied that staff used to visit properties but that staff time is now consumed by phone work and tax‑agreement processing. The one‑year term is intended as a pilot so the city can evaluate vendor performance compared with prior internal outreach.
The committee voted to approve the agreement and the measure carried. The administration agreed to report back with comparative results after the pilot year.
