From The Pen Of Doug Enaa Greene (Via The Boston Occupier)-Occupy Homes Comes to Massachusetts

Occupy Homes Comes to Massachusetts

Doug Enaa Greene

July 12, 20120


Michael Premo, an enthusiastic organizer for a new initiative called “Occupy Homes”, doesn’t see anything new in what he or other groups are doing to stop foreclosures and evictions.

“It started with the Communist Party during the depression in 30’s,” he said, “Then the National Union of the homeless used it in the eighties to organize coordinated occupations of vacant and HUD-owned buildings. And the Take Back the Land movement has used these tactics for the last seven years.”

Right as Occupy Wall Street movement began in the Fall of 2011, pockets of Occupiers in the newly-erected camp began discussing the need to practically address the effects of the financial crisis. It was proposed that, rather than merely wage rhetorical attacks against banks or the U.S. Government, the Occupy movement ought to first bolster its credibility by attacking the heart of the nation’s economic woes: housing.

“Everyone needs a place to live,” Premo says, “and this issue clearly illustrates the connection between Wall Street and the displacement and destruction of our communities.”

As time went on, many realized that this conversation wasn’t confined to Zuccotti Park: similar ideas were being proposed at Occupy encampments around the country. This was aided, in part, by the movement’s Inter-Occupy communication network, which allows disparate groups to connect with activists in other cities and share ideas.

Occupy Homes has become one of the most visible elements of the movement after most Occupy groups were evicted from their encampments late last year. Originating with a National Day of Action on December 6, which saw a multitude of direct actions executed in 25 cities across the country, Occupy Homes has transformed into a decentralized national campaign against unnecessary foreclosures and evictions.

To date, the most successful incarnation of this movement is in Minnesota, with four cancelled evictions under its belt. Occupy Homes MN has received a fair amount of logistical support from local community organizations like Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC), that have been battling this issues for years, long before Occupy began. Some of the group’s staff also works for these organizations, although Occupy Homes MN has secured independent operational funding.

In another example, Occupy Homes in Nashville operated more independently in attempting to save the home of Helen Bailey, a 78-year-old former civil rights activist who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the fifties and sixties. When JP Morgan-Chase threatened to foreclose on Ms. Bailey’s home in January, Occupy Homes in Nashville hosted a press conference on her behalf and staged an anti-foreclosure action against the bank. Occupy Nashville was assisted by members of Occupy Atlanta, who had already successfully defended several homes in preceding months.

At the press conferences, activists drew attention to JP Morgan-Chase’s most recent ad campaign, which prominently featured images of Martin Luther King in an attempt to compare the bank’s ‘community-building’ work to his. Ultimately, public pressure generated by a petition on Change.org thrust the issue into the national spotlight and garnered 80,000 signatures. The bank negotiated with Ms. Bailey to allow her to stay in her home. This was a victory for the retired freedom fighter, but also for neighbors invested in and concerned for the community.

“I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” Bailey said. “I love my home and my community and I am so blessed to be able to stay here.”

That feeling is very important, says Cat Salonek, a community organizer for Occupy Homes MN. People that the group works with “are stepping out of this shadow of shame built around foreclosure, and see that there’s a supportive community around them to help.”

Salonek was not initially on board with the Occupy movement, although she did visit Occupy Minnesota’s encampment at Government Center in downtown Minneapolis.

“But as Occupy moved out of public spaces and into homes, it all started to make a lot more sense to me. I get canvassing, I get having specific demands and achievable goals,” she said.

As she describes it, the points of entry for involvement in Occupy Homes – at least in Minnesota – are a lot simpler to understand for the average citizen. Many volunteer activities bear a resemblance to the work one would do on a political campaign, like phone banking, canvassing, and maintaining a website. This allows for an entry point into more “creative” actions in the future, like a home occupation.

“At that crisis moment, at the eleventh hour when we need them to come out for a direct action, they show up,” Salonek said.

Bringing the Occupation to MA

Inspired by actions in Minnesota and Nashville, activists in Massachusetts and members of Socialist Alternative have formed a local Occupy Homes group in collaboration with Occupy Quincy.

The group is being mentored by City Life / Vida Urbana (CLVU), a Boston-based community organization with nearly forty years experience promoting tenant rights and preventing housing displacement. According to Occupy Homes MA organizer Bryan Koulouris, the groups’ goal is to “build an organization of mutual support for all the fights against the banks, getting as many people facing this situation to shake off the shame, stand up and fight back, together!”

During the first quarter of 2012, banks and other holders of mortgages filed 4,348 petitions to foreclose in Massachusetts. Although lower than the foreclosure highs of several years ago, this figure is a 71.5 percent increase from the first quarter of last year. Filing a petition is the first step in the foreclosure process.

Occupy Homes is planning two anti-eviction actions for July. The first is on July 10, when the home of Ken Goodman, a resident of East Weymouth, is scheduled for auction. The results of this action could not be included in this article, as the Occupier went to press just hours afterwards.

The second action deals with the family of Donna Shea. The Shea family was issued a foreclosure notice by PNC bank with an auction date of July 17, just days after her son was killed in an industrial accident.

“PNC picked the wrong family and the wrong community,” said Koulouris. “We’re going to let all the investment vultures know that they wouldn’t just be buying a home; they’d be buying a big problem”

Those interested in learning more about Occupy Homes MA and upcoming local actions can go to Occupy Homes MA and Occupy Quincy on Facebook.

From The City Life Bank Tenant Association-The Sheild Quiz-Know Your Rights!

Markin comment:

Never let it be said hereafter that this space only preaches "high Trotskyism." This little information packet, with answers to boot, will help you out right now and not in that high heaven communist future that I keep spouting forth about every chance I get.
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City Life Bank Tenant Association Welcomes You To The Resistance!

SHIELD QUIZ

City Life urges a "shield and sword" strategy. The shield is knowing your legal rights and defending yourself legally. Take this quiz to find out if you know your rights. These rights should be used together with the sword. The sword is public protest and public pressure on the banks.

Pre-foreclosure questions

1. Can you be evicted for not paying your mortgage? Yes _ No _

2. The final step in the foreclosure process is
(a) the auction sale (b) the eviction (c) cash for keys

3. You should pay anything necessary to avoid foreclosure. True_ False

Eviction procedure questions

4. I got offered "cash for keys" in the amount of $2000? Is that enough? Yes _ No_

5. I got a "notice to quit". Will the bank send the truck to evict me after it expires? Yes_ No_

6. I got a summons to go to court? Why is the bank evicting me? No reason is given. (a) I'm a bad person _ (b) the mortgage wasn't paid _ _ (c) it's a "no fault" eviction _

7. On the court date, what should I do?
(a) Ignore it _ _ (b) Just go to the hearing _ (c) File answer & discorvery and go to hearing

8. My court date is in district court. It's close by. Should I leave it there? Yes _ No _

9. Can I get legal help and advice? I'm confused! Yes _ No, you don't deserve it _

10.If I am a former tenant, can I really ask for a jury trial? Yes _ No _

11. In court should I "settle" my case with an "agreement to judgment"?
Yes_ No Probably not _

Post-judgment questions

12.1 lost my case in court (or I signed an agreement to judgment that has run out). They threatened me with an "execution"! Is my time up? There's nothing else I can do? True _ False _

13.1 got a 48-hour notice that the constable is coming? What should I do?
(a) Offer the constable coffee and things will be ok _
(b) Have a panic attack _
(c) Stay calm and get legal advice right away
(d) Try to find someone who will sit in your doorway and block the eviction _

*********
SHIELD QUIZ ANSWERS

1. NO! This is very important. The penalty for defaulting on your mortgage is that the bank takes the title to your house.Foreclosure does not mean that the owner (or tenants in the building) have to move right away. A bank still must go through a legal process to evict you. Foreclosure is the beginning of Phase 2 of your struggle. Phase 2 (the eviction fight) is often much more successful than Phase 1 (trying to prevent foreclosure).

2. The auction sale. After an owner is 3 months behind, they will get a notice called a "service members" letter asking if you are a member of the armed forces. Some months later you will get a notice that an "auction" has been scheduled. If nothing is done to postpone the auction, that usually results in the bank taking over ownership. It can result in another
party buying, but so far in this crisis, that has been rare.

3. False. 20% of mortgages nationally are "underwater." That means that the value of the building is less, sometimes much less, than the value of the loan. In Boston's neighborhoods, where owners got a loan 2-4 years ago, it is much higher than 20%. In this situation, you can pay and pay for years and still have no equity. The banks are (so far) very reluctant to do any meaningful loan modification where they would reduce the principle owed to the real value of the building. In these situations, foreclosure, and fighting the eviction after foreclosure, is sometimes the best option.

4. NO. City Life recommends that you reject the cash for keys offer. It gives up all your rights AND your most important advantage - that you occupy the home. These offers range from $500 to, in rare cases, $4000. Former tenants who are involved with City Life and Legal Services can get far more than this ($20,000+) IF they choose to move. Former tenants who want to stay in their homes can do so almost indefinitely. Former owners have fewer rights, but by fightingthe eviction they have a chance to buy back the building from the bank. After foreclosure, the bank refuses to take rent. Everyone fighting a bank eviction should put aside as much of this rent money as they can. This is important.

5. NO! Whether it is a 30-day notice to quit (for tenants) or a 72-hour notice to quit (for former owners), the only thing that happens at the end is that the bank can take you to court. ONLY a judge can evict you. The bank cannot change the locks, turn off utilities, or harass you.

6. It's a no fault eviction. After foreclosure, you are a tenant of the bank. You offer to pay rent. The bank will refuse to accept your rent. Therefore, if they seek an eviction it is "no fault". That means you haven't done anything wrong. It also increases your ability to fight the eviction. This is true of former owners and tenants.

7. File answer and discovery and go to the hearing. The court hearing is always on Thursday. The previous Monday (or before), you should file an answer & discovery with the court AND with the bank's lawyer. The answer is your responseto the eviction. It includes your request for a jury trial, your claims for bad conditions, and more. The discovery is yourrequest for information from the bank. They must respond. The discovery automatically postpones the case 2 weeks.

8. No. Move it to Housing Ct. Housing court judges know housing law better. Also, this postpones the case again.

9. Yes. You can come to City Life bank tenant meetings every Tuesday at 6:15, 284 Amory St. You can call City Life at 617-524-3541. To get help with Answer and Discovery, you can attend Legal Services clinics. These are Friday
morning at Wilmer Hale, 122 Boylston St., JP near Stonybrook (522-20020, Or Monday morning at Greater BostonLegal Services at 197 Friend St. near North Station (371-1234). Call Harvard Legal Aid at 495-4408.

10. Yes! We recommend that everyone ask for a jury trial. For a former tenant, it must be granted. An actual trial is rare;banks usually settle. A recent jury trial denied the eviction and awarded the tenant $54,000 (it could be doubled)!

11. Probably not. An agreement to judgment gives up all your legal rights. You should get legal advice before signing one.(Remember - a court mediator is not on your side). However, even if you sign one without legal advice, you should callCity Life to get help on your next steps. Many fa nilies have won even after signing these agreements.

12. False. An "execution" is the document the bank gets after winning in court. That allows them to hire a constable to evictyou. However, even then, you can try to get a "stay of execution" or "restaining order" to get more time.

13. Stay calm and consider a blockade. Get legal advice right away! In certain cases, City Life and the Bank TenantAssociation are willing to an eviction blockade. Even at this point, you can win. Keep us informed about your case!

*Freeze Home Foreclosures, Freeze Mortgage Payments, Restructure Debt- A Fighting Program To Save The Working Class In Order To Fight Another Day

Click on the headline to link to an American Left History entry,
FOR A MORATORIUM ON HOME FORECLOSURES- And A Note On The Housing Question From Friedrich Engels, dated Saturday, May 26, 2007, that relates to this commentary.

Markin comment:

It does not take a hard-bitten communist, although that helps, to know that our class, the working class, along with the marginal working poor, and the vast majority of minorities in this country have borne the brunt, the immediate brunt, of the now several year old economic crisis spear-headed by the continuing debilitating housing crisis. What has not happened, although one would have expected the explosion from the left by now, is any push back against those who created this crisis, the capitalists. This Tea party thing doesn’t count, for our side any way, because from all the anecdotal evidence that I have gathered their position on the plight of the working class is –“tough luck.”

Tough luck, however, is not the policy of those of us who want to fight for our communist future. Thus, since the American Bankers Association, an organization chock- filled with villains in the various crises of the past few years, is meeting this week, the week of October 17th, in Boston to further their dastardly plans to wreck havoc on the economy I have a three-point program that those of us on the other side can fight around.

Immediate, Unconditional Freeze On Home Foreclosures. This is a no-brainer, even on technical grounds according to the various recent media reports recently about the snafus in this process.

Freeze Mortgage Payments. Hey, those who are swamped in debt up to their eyeballs need relief from these ballooning mortgage payments that have forced millions to walk away from their homes probably never to have another change, at least under this capitalist system, to own their own homes.

Restructure Debt. One of the key practices that has been exposed for all to see during this crisis is that working people, with nothing but their labor to survive on, have been gouged on ultra-usurious interest rates, penalty rates, and extra add-ons. Enough.

Of course, any self-respecting banker, although that seems oxymoronic here, is going to choke on her or his five-course dinner on reading this program. Oh well, if that is the worst thing that happens to them in their sorry lives they will have gotten off easy. If they, and their finance capitalist-driven system can’t see their way clear to do this then we say move on over and we will take charge and implement the program. For that it does take hard-bitten communists though. Fight For A Workers Party That Fights For A Workers Government! 

*From The SteveLendmanBlog" On The Growing Homeless In America

Click on the headline to link to a "SteveLendmanBlog" entry on the growing homelessness in America.

Markin comment:

I suppose the Obama administration will want to call them "Bushvilles" (after the "Hoovervilles" of the early 1930s in the other Great Depression) to shift the blame back but I like "Obamavilles" just fine. In any case, we need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government to begin to seriously address this issue.

*FOR A MORATORIUM ON HOME FORECLOSURES- And A Note On The Housing Question From Friedrich Engels

Click on the headline to link to the "Marx-Engels Internet Archives" for an online copy of Friedrich Engels' "On The Housing Question."

COMMENTARY

NEW HOMEOWNERS NEED SOME RELIEF NOW!

There has bee a recent spike in home foreclosures, particularly in New England, due to several factors including predatory borrowing practices by banks and other lending institutions and housing price declines as a result of oversupply. A call for a foreclosure moratorium as featured in the headline would, however, seem unlikely as a cause for action and comment by a left-wing propagandist. Traditionally the left-wing position on home ownership has been, as spelled out by Frederich Engels, Karl Marx’s close collaborator, don’t do it. The rationale behind that position, not an unreasonable political one, was that the struggle to make house payments in an uncertain capitalist economic environment sapped the political energies of the working class and therefore tended to make workers and their families more conservative.

A later practical example of this was cited by American Socialist Workers Party leader James P. Cannon in the early 1950’s during a faction fight involving a significant section of that party's trade union cadre when he noted that their revolutionary edge had been blunted by concerns over keeping their homes. From another political perspective, also from the 1950’s, Bill Levitt, the capitalist developer and builder of the hugely successful suburban tract houses of the period known as Levittowns, noted that no one who owned his own home was likely to become a communist. Those points are all well and good but, as the Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin pointed out, the task of socialists is to act as ‘tribunes of the people’. And damn, on this one it is the ‘people’ who are being squeezed out.

One of the great enduring myths of American capitalist society is that with a little bit of effort every person can own their own home. Moreover, that condition is one of the prerequisites for having ‘made it’ in America. The long and short of it is that many layers of society have in the past, are now, and will probably in the future desire to have their own homes. Using this notion as a wedge banking institutions has created a huge number of ways to ‘own’ a home as long a one was willing, knowingly or not, to pay extra for this privilege. Gone are the days when a family saved for a certain time to make a reasonable down payment and bought a house based on reasonable expectations of being able to pay off the mortgage, or upgrade, etc. So be it.

Although I have not been privy to all the data concerning who is being foreclosed on, I have observed where the foreclosure auctions are taking place and it is not in the wealthy neighborhoods and towns in my area. The net seems to be dragging those first-time minority and working class buyers who with just the slightest downward shift in economic conditions are pushed to the wall. That, dear reader, is why this is an issue for socialists. While we definitely have our own ideas about how housing will be distributed under socialism-and it will not look like today’s absurdly inequitable distribution- these people need relief now. Is this a revolutionary demand? Hell, no. Is it a just demand? Hell, yes. STOP THE FORECLOSURES.