Occupy Goes Home

The movement takes back foreclosed houses after leaving the park

By Nick Pinto
Wednesday, Dec 14 2011
http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-12-14/news/occupy-goes-home/

A cold, persistent rain fell on East New York last Tuesday
as a crowd of hundreds snaked its way through the Brooklyn
neighborhood, filled the street, and filed past blocks
scabbed with vacant, boarded buildings.

By design, the front of the procession was dominated by
local residents and community activists. But the bulk of
the crowd was made up of people who had probably never
been so far out on the 3 line before: displaced residents
of Zuccotti Park marching under the banner of Occupy Wall
Street.

The marchers made frequent stops outside vacant foreclosed
homes and marked them with black-and-yellow-striped tape
that read "Occupy." At one stop, a young man named Quincy
stood on a stoop and told the crowd he was slated for
eviction that very day. City Councilmember Charles Barron,
speaking for the crowd, said, "We are not going to let
this young man lose his home today." Quincy wept.

The final destination of the march was a secret to all but
a few until the crowd turned up Vermont Avenue, where
balloons and banners outside number 702 heralded a
housewarming party.

The previous resident of 702 Vermont had been forced out
three years earlier when his Countrywide Financial
mortgage went into foreclosure after just a year. The
small two-story house has stood vacant ever since, a
dumping ground for construction debris and a source of
concern for neighbors who feared it might turn into a drug
den.

For the past month, Occupy Wall Street activists and their
allies had been vetting foreclosed homes throughout the
city as possible sites for a new kind of occupation. They
settled on 702 Vermont for its easy access and the
neighborhood's eagerness to see the home occupied. They
broke into the building three days before the housewarming
party and began preparing it for its new residents.

When Occupy Wall Street put the word out that they were
looking for homeless families to take over "de-foreclosed
homes," Alfredo Carrasquillo, homeless himself and a
community organizer with VOCAL-NY, volunteered. He would
take up residence in the house while the necessary repairs
were completed. Then, his two young children and their
mother, Tasha Glasgow, also homeless after exhausting the
city's dwindling assistance programs, would move in.

A rotating cast of Occupy Wall Street volunteers has been
staying on site to support the new residents in case the
police try to kick them out. Hundreds more are ready to
rush to their defense when notified by Twitter or text
alert.

The action in East New York was mirrored by dozens of
similar events across the country last Tuesday, and
activists promise more home occupations to come. Together,
the Occupy Our Homes actions represent the movement's
first major shift in strategy since police evicted
occupations in many cities from their encampments in
public parks last month.

This new strategy presents a much tighter fit between
tactics and message than was seen in OWS 1.0. When Occupy
Wall Street was in Zuccotti Park, the media seized on the
drum circles and sleeping-bag lifestyle to paint a picture
of aimlessness and chaos--Woodstock tipping over into
Altamont. But the occupied homes present a much clearer
narrative: previously homeless families and young
children, put into homes that the bankers' broken system
had left vacant and rotting for years.

"The foreclosure crisis is where the rubber hits the road
with the financial sector and the real economy, the 1
percent and the 99 percent," says Mike Konczal, a
finance-reform expert at the Roosevelt Institute who
attended the East New York occupation. "If you really want
to challenge the banks' power and the way they're
stripping wealth out of communities, leaving wreckage
behind, foreclosures are a key point to go to."

The robo-signing and chronic mortgage fraud that has
characterized the banks' conduct during the foreclosure
crisis are fertile ground for Occupy Wall Street, not
least of all because the Obama administration's eagerness
to sweep the scandal under the rug with a quick settlement
speaks to exactly the poisonous alliance between Wall
Street and Washington that the movement decries.

There was some indication last week that the banks were
rattled by this new tactic. A former subsidiary of
Countrywide Financial, now owned by Bank of America, sent
an e-mail warning field agents about the home occupations
and asking them to check the bank's foreclosed properties
to "ensure they are secured."

That e-mail was heralded by Occupy Wall Street supporters
as evidence that the new campaign has banks quaking in
their boots. But it's not clear that awareness of Occupy
Our Homes has triggered an all-hands-on-deck response from
the captains of finance. Late last week, a spokesperson
for the American Bankers Association said she had never
heard of last Tuesday's actions and had to have them
explained to her.

Whether or not the bankers are paying attention, Occupy
Wall Street is hoping this new campaign will resonate with
a wider audience than the movement has been able to reach
so far. A survey last spring found that nearly one-third
of Americans personally knew a distressed homeowner, and
with all indications showing the foreclosure epidemic
rolling on for the foreseeable future, Occupy Wall Street
is betting that home occupation is a form of civil
disobedience the 99 percent can get behind.

"I'm just like everyone else," Glasgow said, speaking in
her new home last week. "All I want is for me and my kids
to be safe."

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