A Detroit woman received a life-saving transplant after getting evicted from her tiny home.
Taura Brown, 43, is a fighter and survivor. She battled stage-five kidney disease and knew she didn’t qualify for a transplant because of one strict requirement she didn’t meet — a stable household, Metro Times reported.
In April, Rev. Faith Fowler, the owner of Brown’s home, evicted the ill tenant despite her never missing a rent payment and needing a transplant, which Fowler knew.
“I could have easily not gotten a kidney,” Brown said. “She didn’t even have the decency to see if I was going to die before taking my home.”
Despite not having a home, Brown received good news on Sunday, May 7. During lunch with friends and activists, Bronw’s sister told her that her doctors had a kidney for her and asked if she wanted it.
Brown happily accepted.
“It was a total shock,” Brown shared. “The doctors thought it was a perfect match. They wanted to know if I was interested. I said, ‘Yes.'”
Brown achieved her new kidney on Monday morning but had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery because a hematoma developed around her new kidney.
The emergency surgery was successful, but Brown still has one problem, the housing situation.
She has been living with her boyfriend and sister but doesn’t see their homes as a permanent place to live.
“I never intended to live with a man I wasn’t married to,” Brown admitted. “I want to take care of myself. I have to find a place to live.”
Brown had lived in a 317-square-foot home since January 2020 in a community of tiny houses in the Dexter-Linwood neighborhood — paying $317 a month or $1 per square foot. Cass Community Social Services (CCSS), an anti-poverty nonprofit, built the homes to help Detroit people with low incomes and 18-year-olds out of foster care.
The CCSS’s target was those without generational wealth. Brown joined the CCSS because she and the other tenants were promised the deed to their home, mortgage-free, as long as they paid the rent on time for seven years.
The 43-year-old said she never missed rent payments but was told that her 12-month lease wouldn’t be renewed and given an eviction notice.
The warning came after Brown accused the organization and the director, Fowler, of micromanaging its tenants and fraud.
Fowler denied the claims and filed a defamation lawsuit against Brown on top of the eviction notice.
Brown claimed the CCSS and Fowler were evicting her because she exposed them for their wrongdoings, but Fowler said that they ousted Brown because she spent most of her time living with her boyfriend at his riverfront apartment. The CCSS director didn’t think it was fair that Brown had another place to stay while others needed a home for a lower monthly price. Brown maintained that her boyfriend placed her name on the lease because she used the apartment complex’s pool a lot.
A spokesperson for Fowler named Macy Hayes told the outlet that Brown was faking her illness despite having surgical scars on her body.
Brown’s neighbors and supporters gathered outside her home and created a barricade by linking their arms to stop bailiffs from removing Brown and her belongings in early April.
Bailiffs are getting violent as they try to evict a terminally ill Black woman from her home in Detroit. One of them pulled out a knife, and others punched home defenders. Police keep stopping them, saying they are acting “unprofessionally.” pic.twitter.com/wJeE0oOq7E
— Steve Neavling (@MCmuckraker) April 4, 2023
The encounter got out of control after bailiffs started punching protestors, and one of them pulled out a knife, threatening a protester. Police interfered and attempted to stop the bailiffs because of their unprofessional behavior. Eventually, they stood out of the bailiff’s way, allowing them to harass protesters, who refused to surrender the fight. However, their attempts were unsuccessful as Wayne County bailiffs broke through the barricade, throwing Brown and her stuff out (breaking some).
Despite Brown’s obstacles, she said the kidney transplant gave her more energy to fight.
“I didn’t have this energy before. I had a bunch of fatigue and crankiness,” she told the outlet. “Now that I have this kidney and I have more energy, I’m going to see about passing legislation for people who were promised they could rent to own. It’s a scam happening in a lot of places.”
She added, “I’m so happy. Everybody has come together and really supported me. The kidney was a lifesaver.”
Organizations Detroit Will Breathe and Detroit Eviction Defense joined forces with Brown, believing the eviction was out of retaliation and on a racial basis. Fowler denied the displacement was anything racial, stating 20 of the 21 tenants are Black.
Our statement on The Eviction of Taura Brown. pic.twitter.com/GWdn9gcbjN
— Detroit Will Breathe (@DETWILLBREATHE) April 6, 2023
