Hey, WHATEVER WORKS!
"A move against foreclosures; Housing activists’ bold tactics pressuring banks" by Jenifer B. McKim, Globe Staff | September 26, 2009
.... In parts of the country especially hard hit by foreclosures, there has been an increase in the number of people “squatting’’ in abandoned homes, but such tenants usually avoid publicity. Now more groups are getting involved as a political statement. For instance, Take Back the Land, a Miami group, has moved 11 families into bank-owned and government-owned homes since late 2007. Founding member Max Rameau said that after a recent standoff at a foreclosed house, the lender agreed to sell the property to a nonprofit group for $1 and let its occupants stay.
“Housing is a human right, and it doesn’t make any logical sense to have vacant homes on one side of the street and homeless on the other side of the street,’’ said Rameau. “Given the fact that banks have all the power, this is becoming increasingly the only option left for people to engage in direct public policy.’’******************
“Now is the time for banks to step up and help families instead of putting them out,’’ said Louis, 41, who needed a place to live after losing her home in Mattapan to foreclosure. “There are all these vacant, empty places for no reason.’’
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Yeah, right. They have had years.
Louis is staying in the townhouse with her 10-year-old son and members of the Jamaica Plain group City Life/Vida Urbana, which has attempted to prevent foreclosure evictions by having people chain themselves to properties. The Cobden Street “occupation’’ is different because no one was being evicted. It marks the first local example of the more militant tactics being used by housing activists nationwide, who say lenders are culpable in the foreclosure crisis.
Oooooooooh!! Militants is ONE STEP REMOVED from TERRORISTS!!!!
Not that the paper is biased or anything.
City Life’s unorthodox - and illegal - action appears to be yielding results....
Occupying a home without permission is a crime, according to the Boston Police Department....
Then GO ARREST ISRAEL!
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