MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio—At a petition table inside a Cleveland area gun show on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, citizens talk of an American Dream derailed.
There’s the elderly couple who paid off their mortgage decades ago but can’t afford the property taxes on their home. Their local government, theoretically, can seize the property and auction it off to someone else if the annual bills remain unpaid.
Then there’s the recent retiree who took a part-time job at Lowe’s to pay property taxes on his rental property and avoid raising his tenants’ rent.
Add empty nesters who can’t downsize to smaller houses because interest rates are too high, farmers describing an impossible situation, and recent college graduates groaning about moving further away from home to an affordable place….