Advocates Help Homeless Occupy Repo Homes
April 14th, 2009 by 
Joseph Smith
Community advocates have been helping homeless families squat on repo homes in Atlanta, Louisville, Miami and other cities across the country.
In Miami, a group of local advocates named Take Back the Land has been looking for repo houses openly and putting homeless people in them.
Some community groups have even supported stronger actions like telling renters or borrowers not to leave if their properties become repo homes and they are told to leave.
The advocates said many neighbors even support their actions, preferring the abandoned repo homes to be occupied by people who clean and guard the properties rather than having the repo homes locked and broken into by vandals and drug addicts.
According to Bill Faith, leader of the Ohio Coalition on Homelessness and Housing, he has observed that sheriff’s departments have been reluctant in enforcing eviction notices and foreclosures on families. He said law enforcement officers have been overwhelmed by the problem of repo homes. Faith, however, said his organization does not engage in putting homeless people into repo homes.
Michael Stoops, head of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said several advocacy organizations around the country have been putting homeless families into abandoned repo homes, either because of lack of facilities for the homeless or because of the rise in cases of vandalism and theft in foreclosure-hit communities.
In Philadelphia, seven vacant repo homes have been seized by Kensington Welfare and established them as human rights houses for 13 families. In Minnesota, 13 repo homes were sequestered by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign for homeless families. Cheri Honkala, leader of the Poor People advocacy and who was homeless once, said the work of her group is similar to the Underground Railroad situation in the 1800s, enabling homeless families to have roofs over their heads for up to year before they are finally evicted.
Honkala even related that neighbors are kinder and more supportive now, even giving mattresses and food to the homeless people.
In Louisville, members of the Women in Transition are looking for repo homes to occupy, protesting against the scarcity of affordable housing in the midst of thousands of vacant homes.
In Atlanta, members of the Metro Atlanta Task Force, led by Anita Beaty, ask banks to give them abandoned foreclosure properties to fix and occupy legally.
Take Back the Land’s director Max Rameau said his organization operates openly and requires occupants to clean the repo homes, make repairs, pay the utility bills and help the community look better.
