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Squatters moving into vacant foreclosures seems to be moving from a rare case here and there to a full fledged trend with organizations - some openly, others discretely - helping homeless families move into vacant foreclosed properties.The New York Times reported that organizations like Take Back the Land have been helping homeless families find and illegally move into properties vacated due to foreclosure and this raises some really interesting questions.
For starters, do the homeless have a right to live in vacant foreclosures?
It can easily be argued that it's better to have someone - anyone - living in the property and keeping after it rather than leaving it to vandals, and it's even more easily argued that if the property is vacant and the bank isn't doing anything with it, why not put it to good use.
But isn't home ownership something that one earns by paying a mortgage?
Why should someone who can no longer pay their mortgage be evicted from their home through foreclosure, only to have someone else - who also can't pay the mortgage - move in illegally?
The New York Times article follows the story of Queen Omega and highlights how she "introduced herself to the neighbors, signed contracts for electricity and water and ordered an Internet connection."
But should organizations - yes that's plural - be helping homeless families squat foreclosed properties? For example:
But isn't home ownership something that one earns by paying a mortgage?
Why should someone who can no longer pay their mortgage be evicted from their home through foreclosure, only to have someone else - who also can't pay the mortgage - move in illegally?
The New York Times article follows the story of Queen Omega and highlights how she "introduced herself to the neighbors, signed contracts for electricity and water and ordered an Internet connection."
But should organizations - yes that's plural - be helping homeless families squat foreclosed properties? For example:
In Minnesota, a group called the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign recently moved families into 13 empty homes; in Philadelphia, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union maintains seven "human rights houses" shared by 13 families. Cheri Honkala, who is the national organizer for the Minnesota group and was homeless herself once, likened the group's work to "a modern-day underground railroad," and said squatters could last up to a year in a house before eviction.
Squatting and living for free for up to one year? A "modern-day underground railroad"?
How about this group in Kentucky:
Other groups, including Women in Transition in Louisville, Ky., are looking for properties to occupy, especially as they become frustrated with the lack of affordable housing and the oversupply of empty homes.Where do you stand on this? Should the misfortune of over-leveraged homeowners benefit the homeless and should organizations be facilitating illegal squatting? Is this right, fair or just? I welcome your thoughts below.
It seems to me using this logic, we could go to a dealership and drive their cars. No one is using them! Of course, if the banks would take some action and move some of the inventory or come up with alternative solutions we might not be in this mess.