Dear readers,
My name is Haru Coryne, and I’m a data reporter for ProPublica.
In April, my colleague Jeremy Kohler and I published an investigation into a home-loan program in Missouri called Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, that has put dozens of borrowers at risk of losing their homes since it started in 2016.
The program lets borrowers finance energy-efficient home improvements, like solar panels and heating systems, with no money down; they then repay the loan through their annual property tax bills. The idea, once touted by then-Vice President Joe Biden, was to use the government to help consumers save money on their utilities while also fighting climate change.
Instead, we found Missouri’s PACE program has operated without effective oversight, allowing private companies to charge high interest rates that have trapped vulnerable homeowners, many of whom turned to the program in moments of desperation. Many of these borrowers live in Black neighborhoods with low property values.
PACE officials, and the private lenders they work with, defended the program, saying it provides much-needed financing for people who can’t get a more traditional loan. They said their interest rates tend to be lower than those of some credit cards and of payday lenders.
Nonetheless, after our story ran, Missouri legislators passed a reform bill that would establish stronger oversight of the program.
As so often happens with stories about debt, we heard a lot about personal responsibility and financial literacy while reporting — and not just from the PACE industry, but also from bankers, consumer advocates and even some borrowers. After all, they seemed to ask, didn’t debtors sign the contracts of their own free will?
But the predicament of people burdened by PACE debt reminded me of every time I’d signed a lease for an apartment or even scrolled through the terms of service on a mobile app. In theory, if I didn’t like the terms, I could just walk away. But when the contract is for an essential home repair, like a new furnace in winter, there’s not much of a choice.
In fact, I racked up a debt of my own while reporting on the story. I signed a contract with a local government that charged for access to property records like deeds and mortgages. I was loath to pay for public documents, but these were essential to understanding how PACE operated. There was no story without them.
I could see that the contract stipulated high fees. But I didn’t have a choice. The county had an exclusive arrangement with a private company to provide online access to property records. In St. Louis County, I agreed to pay $150 for 500 minutes of access, plus extra fees if I downloaded too many pages. I signed similar contracts in St. Charles County and the city of St. Louis. I asked company representatives and county officials to waive the fees, pointing out that I was a journalist doing work in the public interest. My requests were rejected.
I’ve covered the real estate market in five states, but I had never encountered a system like this. I signed and hoped for the best.
When the bill arrived in the mail, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I, and ProPublica, were on the hook for $7,069 — just to view property records that are freely available in most of the country, including in some parts of Missouri.
Immediately, I experienced what some of the debtors we wrote about must have felt after signing contracts they later regretted: remorse, embarrassment and a feeling of being trapped.
We complained, and the county agreed to bill us at a lower rate intended for heavy commercial users. It was a special, limited-time offer: almost $1,900. Not seeing much hope for a better deal, we paid up. The county still threatened to send us to collections when our check was delayed in the mail.
The high cost of property records in the St. Louis area makes it hard for people to stay informed about housing issues in their community, according to Peter Hoffman, managing attorney at the nonprofit Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. His organization assists homeowners with land title issues, he said, and has to pay for access to the documents it needs to do its work.
“Nobody, unless you’re in the real estate or title industry, has access to all those records,” he said.
Our debt from the story is settled. But the words of one St. Louis resident linger with me. When her window air-conditioning unit couldn’t keep up in the sweltering summer, she turned to PACE to finance a new system. It was, she said, a health issue; one of her daughters would get nosebleeds in extremely hot weather. Now, she’s committed to thousands of dollars in interest and fees over 15 years, which she struggles to pay. It was a moment of desperation, but her explanation of how she thought through the choice she faced struck me as perfectly rational.
The debt, she said, would be “a one-time-per-year problem.” “I’d just tackle it and move on,” she said. “But to not have air, with kids who are asthmatic and having nosebleeds — we couldn’t continue how we were going.”
Thank you for reading. If you care about housing inequality or environmental justice in the Midwest, I urge you to read the full story here, and to keep an eye out for more stories on this subject.
Best,
Haru
