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Occupy protesters in U.S. target foreclosures
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CBC News
The Occupy Wall Street protests are moving on to a new target.
Protesters across the United States are reclaiming foreclosed homes and boarded-up properties, signalling a tactical shift for the movement against wealth inequality. Groups in more than 25 cities held protests Tuesday on behalf of homeowners facing evictions.
In Atlanta, protesters held a boisterous rally at a county courthouse and used whistles and sirens to disrupt an auction of seized houses. In New York, they marched through a residential neighbourhood in Brooklyn carrying signs that read "Foreclose on banks, not people." Los Angeles protesters rallied around a family of five who plans to reclaim the home they lost six months ago in foreclosure.
"It's pretty clear that the fight is against the banks, and the Occupy movement is about occupying spaces. So occupying a space that should belong to homeowners but belongs to the banks seems like the logical next step for the Occupy movement," said Jeff Ordower, one of the organizers of Occupy Homes.
The events reflect the protesters' lingering frustration over the housing crisis that has sent millions of homes into foreclosure after the burst of the housing bubble that helped cripple the country's economy. Nearly a quarter of all U.S. homeowners with mortgages are now underwater, representing nearly 11 million homes, according to CoreLogic, a real estate research firm.
Protesters say that banks and financial firms own abandoned foreclosed houses that could be housing people.
Seattle became a leader in the anti-foreclosure movement last month when protesters took over a boarded-up duplex last month. They painted the bare wood siding with green, black and red paint, and strung up a banner that says "Occupy Everything — No Banks No Landlords."
While arrests have already been made in a couple of squatting cases in Seattle and Portland, it remains to be seen how authorities will react to this latest tactic.
In Portland, Ore., police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said he's aware the movement called for people to make a political statement by occupying foreclosed homes, but said police will "treat them all as trespassers."
In Seattle, police spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said his department sees squatting in private properties as the same violation of trespassing Occupy Seattle made when it camped in a downtown park.
"It's no different than when people were trespassing [in the park]," Whitcomb said. "We went nights and days, letting people camp in the park. We relied on education and outreach, rather than enforcing the law to the letter."
There were at least two setbacks for police who have been at odds with the Occupy protesters.
In New Orleans, a federal judge allowed Occupy protesters and homeless people to return to the New Orleans park where they had camped since early October before being forced out by police on Tuesday. And in New York, Rep. Jerrold Nadler called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate allegations of police misconduct in connection with the treatment of Occupy Wall Street protesters and journalists covering the demonstrations there.
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