Street roots., May 01, 2009, Page 9, Image 9

k CELEBRATING A DECADE
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street roots
Education •Dialogs ♦ Independence
SQUATTERS,from page 8
because although there are many
communities that are impacted by
homelessness in general, in this housing
crisis in particular we feel that the black
community, and the numbers will bear this
out, is disproportionately impacted both in
homelessness and in the larger hanging
crisis. The black community has been
deliberately and systematically denied
access to land, and denied control of land.
That’s in terms of land, but in a broad social
sense, we’ve been denied access to power,
and the power of control over our own
affairs. That is a significant component to
the problem, and therefore a significant
component to the solution.
C.K.: You make it a point to talk to
neighbors in a community before you move
people in, and you also work with the families
to integrate them into the community. Why do
you think that it is important not just to house
people, but to also create that larger
community?
M.R.: We’re really operating on at least
three different levels. One is that we are
trying to help the individuals and the
individual families. The second is we want
to help the broader community. We think
the community is strengthened by having
families in homes rather then having them
sit vacant, by having good neighbors rather
then by having bad neighbors, and by having
some sense of cohesion in the
neighborhood. We think that moving people
in next door to someone without letting
them know, even if we don’t fully tell them
what’s going on, is disrespectful. And one of
the things that we require is that the
families we move in be good neighbors. We
tell them, when you see your neighbors in
the morning, say good morning. You see
them in the afternoon, say good afternoon.
If they say you’re too loud, you need to quiet
down. We have these rules that will help
the tenants that we move in to be good
neighbors.
The third level is that we’re trying to
build a movement that is able to happen in a
geographical area much wider then Miami,
and will have an impact much greater then
the individual families that we move in. In
order to do that, the initial phases of the
movement have to be very clear, very crisp
and not have any confusing messages about
them.... We want there to be only one
issue, and that issue is that you have a
family who has a right to and deserves
housing. So we want them to be good
neighbors because we feel that not only
helps the individual family, but it also helps
the community that they are moving into,
and it helps build a broader movement by
keeping messages very clear.
C.K.: Would you recommend for people to
squat on their own?
M.R.: People need to do what they need
to do to get housing, and they do that
Squatting right now in the U.S. is absolutely
rampant and it’s primarily, overwhelmingly,
happening by people doing this on their
own. That’s clear and there is no denying
that
With that said, I don’t think that squatting
itself is the most dignified way of doling
with the problem of lack of housing, and I
don’t think it’s a long-term society-wide
solution. The long-term solution is of
course to elevate housing to the level of
human right society-wide. The only way it is
going to be dealt with society-wide is by
there being a society wide discussion/clash/
struggle around this issue. It could happen
with individuals acting individually, but I
don’t think that is how social change is
made, however. Social change is made by
people joining organizations, being part of
organizations, and then as members of
organizations acting as a group fighting for
the particular things that they believe in.
C.K.: You recognize that what you are doing
is illegal. What steps do you take to ensure
families have the longest possible amount of
staying time in a location?
M.R.: The U.S. is signatory to no less
then seven treaties which define housing as
a human right, including the declaration of
human rights. So, at least on the policy side,
on the big international law side, this should
be completely and totally legal, but it hasn’t
filtered down yet to the local level. So, while
there are specific laws outlawing squatting,
there 'are specific laws which you could
argue don’t do that There just hasn’t been
a reconciliation between the two.
In terms of having people extend their
longevity there, we have certain guidelines
around the homes that we move people into,
both the homes and the families. And the
two guidelines are supposed to work
together, and we think that this is one of the
ways that we can maximize their stay. The
homes, for example, have to be in good
condition, they have to have the capacity for
electricity and running water. And the other
benefit to having the family act as good
neighbors, is that neighbors will want them
to stay and will fight for them to stay.
In the two cases in which we have been
very public with the families that are there,
we think that the main reason they have
stayed is not because of our great political
work, but because there has been no
neighbor who has come out and said, I want
these people out of there.
There’s a whole range of reasons why
we’d move someone into a home, and a
significant number of those reasons have to
do with the ability of them to stay there for
a long period of time.
in the shelters. She wept quietly at the idea
of having keys, and she spent the rest of the
time just jingling the keys.
C.K.: How do you prepare the families that
you work with for the possibility of being
arrested and the possibility of being separated
from their kids?
M.R.: I think that the biggest
responsibility that we have is to be honest
C.K.: Describe some of the different families, with them and allow them to make their
to put a face on some of the people that you are
own decisions. We have had a number of
helping.
families come up to us and ask us for help,
and when we explain to them exactly what
M.R.: Sure. We have one young lady who
we do and what the potentials are, who
went to a political rally. She had a dual
never called us back. Obviously we’d like to
masters and the only thing missing for her
help those families, but the important thing
to get her PhD was her dissertation, which
is that we don’t put them in a position
was finished, but she just couldn’t pay for
where suddenly they are in a whirlwind they
another semester of
didn’t realize they’d
school. Extremely
be in. We are brutally
smart, obviously, very
"She said, 'The guy just
honest with them,
bright, very political,
both about what the
asked me where I am
and just fell on a
prospects are and
going to sleep/ We were
series of unfortunate
also where we’ve
events which
in the master bedroom,
been, that no one
completely
has been arrested
and she said, 'I said I was
undermined and
and etc. But we are
going
to
sleep
in
here/
destroyed her
very clear with them
and she pointed to the
financial life. So, she
and we let them
was homeless and
walk-in closet. I was
know what some of
very frustrated, given
the possibilities are,
completely shocked."
the fact that she was
which include arrest,
so smart and so
which include getting
independent and had
all kinds of trumped
been used to being so independent
up charges, which include losing their
The moment that I remember most about children in the instances that they do have
her is that when we moved her. We were
children.
there with media, and she said, “The guy
There are very serious potentials, at the
just asked me where I am going to sleep.”
same time the most likely scenario really is
We were in the master bedroom, and she
that the police would tell them to leave and
said, “I said I was going to sleep in here,”
they wouldn’t arrest them. If they arrested
and she pointed to the walk-in closet I was
them the most likely charge would be
trespassing, which would be a misdemeanor,
completely shocked. We had discussed this
which then would not endanger them and
many times, you’re moving here, we’re
their children..
giving you a key and etc^so I said, “Come
with me for a second,” and we went out to
C.K.: Having just visited Dignity Village,
the front door. The guy was just changing
the lock and I took the keys and I gave them do you have any thoughts on the recent
to her and I said, “You know, we want you to proliferation of tent cities across America?
walk in the front door. I know what the law
M.R.: We said when Umoja Village was up
says, but we feel that this is your house.”
in Oct of 2006 to April of 2007, that we
And for the first time she realized, she
wasn’t going to be sneaking in the back door would start finding shanty towns and tent
cities all over the country, and in 10 years it
in the middle of the night She is going to
would be commonplace, but probably in five
be walking in the front door, and I think it
years you would find them everywhere. It
dawned on her that for the first time in a
looks like we are beating the 5-year
while she doesn’t have to live under really
estimate.
degrading circumstances, even though
We’re in a moment where the condi
obviously squatting has its own inherent
tions are clearly declining very rapidly, but
issues. I feel like at that moment a part of
people’s ideas of what the U.S. is still
her own humanity was reawakened that had
remains in this past period.
died while she was living on the streets and
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