Demolition contractor stops work, says Detroit owes him money

DETROIT -- Detroit received more than $13 million in federal HUD money to demolish dangerous structures that line the streets.

Bill Koresky from Able Demolition was one of the contractors hired to do the job, but he said he stopped the work because the city hasn't paid his company since April -- a total of $400,000.

"Every week, it's next week.  It's next week.  It's next week," he said.  "And it's all MSHDA money given to Detroit and they disperse it, but they can't disperse it.  I don't know where the problem is, but I've called the mayor's office, I've called MSHDA, I've called everybody and I can't get responses on where my money is."

Koresky said he can't even afford to work for the city anymore.  He had to take a loan out just to pay his bills and employees.  So now he is taking jobs from the state where he actually gets paid for his work.

Nate Ford from the city's Building Department blamed the delay on invoice issues.  He claimed Able Demolition did received one small payment of $27,000 back in July.  As for the rest, he told us the city will cut two more checks worth more than $150,000 on Friday, and the city plans to look into the rest of the invoices for the remaining $200,000.

Koresky was concerned if the money wasn't paid out, the city would have to give the federal funds back.

Karla Henderson from the mayor's office assured us that is not the case.  The city also had to fix its bidding process, which forced them to extend the government deadline, but they plan to have a total of 10,000 homes demolished by the end of next year.