Occupy is Stopping Foreclosures and Evictions All Over the Country

JP Morgan & Chase Co. CEO Jamie Dimon had an early birthday surprise last Monday: The bank was closed. The disruption happened not because the birthday of 

JP Morgan & Chase Co. CEO Jamie Dimon had an early birthday surprise last Monday: The bank was closed. The disruption happened not because the birthday of Forbes magazine’s 41st “most powerful person” in the world had finally been declared a national holiday. It was because hundreds of Occupy Atlanta and Take Back the Land activists used their bodies, furniture, poetry, and more to shut down five bank branches in Atlanta in protest of the eviction of the family of Eloise Pittman, who had been sold a predatory loan with an interest rate of more than 10 percent. The action kicked off a national week of action foreclosures.

Across the country, homeowners, activist organizations, lawyers, and Occupiers are uniting to create a direct-action campaign against foreclosures. Begun as a national campaign on December 6th by Occupy our Homes, the coalition movement has already stopped nearly one hundred evictions and the actions are intensifying. Less than 24 hours after the Chase protests, 7 families across Detroit publicly vowed to fight their own foreclosures, building on a string of successful anti-eviction actions in a city where the extent and effects of foreclosures (about 100,000 in the last five years) has remaining city residents describing the banks as “economic terrorists.”JP Mor­gan & Chase Co. CEO Jamie Dimon had an early birth­day sur­prise last Mon­day: The bank was closed. The dis­rup­tion hap­pened not be­cause the birth­day of Forbes mag­a­zine’s 41st “most pow­er­ful per­son” in the world had fi­nally been de­clared a na­tional hol­i­day. It was be­cause hun­dreds of Oc­cupy At­lanta and Take Back the Land ac­tivists used their bod­ies, fur­ni­ture, po­etry, and more to shut down five bank branches in At­lanta in protest of the evic­tion of the fam­ily of Eloise Pittman, who had been sold a preda­tory loan with an in­ter­est rate of more than 10 per­cent. The ac­tion kicked off a na­tional week of ac­tion fore­clo­sures.

Across the coun­try, home­own­ers, ac­tivist or­ga­ni­za­tions, lawyers, and Oc­cu­piers are unit­ing to cre­ate a di­rect-ac­tion cam­paign against fore­clo­sures. Begun as a na­tional cam­paign on De­cem­ber 6th by Oc­cupy our Homes, the coali­tion move­ment has al­ready stopped nearly one hun­dred evic­tions and the ac­tions are in­ten­si­fy­ing. Less than 24 hours after the Chase protests, 7 fam­i­lies across De­troit pub­licly vowed to fight their own fore­clo­sures, build­ing on a string of suc­cess­ful anti-evic­tion ac­tions in a city where the ex­tent and ef­fects of fore­clo­sures (about 100,000 in the last five years) has re­main­ing city res­i­dents de­scrib­ing the banks as “eco­nomic ter­ror­ists.”

Thurs­day, New York City Oc­cu­piers moved an en­tire fur­ni­ture set onto the side­walk in front of a down­town Man­hat­tan branch of Bank of Amer­ica as hun­dreds protested against the bailed-out bank for fore­clos­ing on hun­dreds of thou­sands of fam­i­lies.

“Bank of Amer­ica is one of the largest per­pe­tra­tors of robo-sign­ing,” said George Machado, one of the in­te­rior de­sign­ers who helped set up couches, cof­fee ta­bles, lamps, and a flat-screen TV to block bank en­trances. He pointed out that the bank re­ceives mil­lions in tax­payer sub­si­dies even as it steals homes: “So, since they fore­closed on our homes, we fig­ured we’d move in there.”

On Fri­day, neigh­bors ral­lied in Bayview Hunters Point in San Fran­cisco to sup­port Dex­ter Cato and his chil­dren’s re­oc­cu­pa­tion of their fam­ily home. Cato is a for­mer union mem­ber who was evicted from his home after he suf­fered a work­place ac­ci­dent and his wife died in a car crash.

“If the banks refuse to de­clare a mora­to­rium on fore­clo­sures, we will de­clare our own until the banks work with fam­i­lies for fair and af­ford­able so­lu­tions,” said Grace Mar­tinez with Al­liance of Cal­i­for­ni­ans for Com­mu­nity Em­pow­er­ment.

The anti-fore­clo­sure and right-to-hous­ing move­ments are among the most con­sis­tent in our na­tion’s his­tory of ac­tivism—a con­stant ne­ces­sity in a coun­try where pri­vate prop­erty is a right but a fam­ily’s basic shel­ter, se­cu­rity, and safety is a priv­i­lege. Most often led by women and peo­ple of color, the block-by-block grass­roots move­ment boasts con­sid­er­able suc­cess: the im­ple­men­ta­tion of rent sta­bi­liza­tion and rent con­trol laws in the 1920s and 30s; dozens of state mora­to­ri­ums on fore­clo­sures dur­ing the Great De­pres­sion; hun­dreds of aban­doned build­ing takeovers in the 1970s and 80s in New York City alone.

Now, sparked by Oc­cupy and ne­ces­si­tated by mil­lions of fore­clo­sures across the coun­try, mo­men­tum has spread to nearly every major city, with re­cent or on­go­ing ac­tions in Boston, Tampa, Maui, De­troit, Nashville, Birm­ing­ham, New York City, Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Chicago, Cleve­land, At­lanta, Min­neapo­lis, Delaware, and cities across Cal­i­for­nia. The move­ment is de­cen­tral­ized and ac­tion-based, using a di­ver­sity of tac­tics that in­clude front-lawn tent oc­cu­pa­tions, bank protests, fur­ni­ture move-ins, home takeovers, and auc­tion block­ades. In New York City, Or­ga­niz­ing for Oc­cu­pa­tion (O4O) and OWS are plan­ning to dis­rupt every home auc­tion in the city the sec­ond week of April by singing in the court­room, a tac­tic that has al­ready stopped dozens of homes from being auc­tioned off this win­ter.

Some ac­tions are scal­able; oth­ers, less so. In Birm­ing­ham, for ex­am­ple, an ex­tended evic­tion de­fense team has been liv­ing in tents on a fam­ily’s front lawn for more than two months, weath­er­ing freez­ing tem­per­a­tures and even a tor­nado (“It came within a hun­dred feet, and it scared the f**k out of me, par­don my lan­guage,” said Allyn Hud­son, one of the Oc­cu­piers). This type of house-by-house cam­paign might not be replic­a­ble on a mass scale, yet enough can force the gov­ern­ment to take oth­er­wise un­ten­able ac­tion. In Spain, the hun­dreds of build­ing takeovers and suc­cess­ful anti-evic­tion ac­tions by M-15 ac­tivists and the Plat­form of Peo­ple Af­fected by Mort­gage have won many home­own­ers dación en pago—sign­ing the home back over to the cred­i­tor and can­cel­ing the mort­gage debt—in Cat­alo­nia. Mo­men­tum is build­ing to enact the pol­icy in other re­gions.

As the anti-fore­clo­sure ac­tions build, it’s be­com­ing clear that these vic­to­ries are not merely one chink in the armor of a his­tor­i­cally un­just global eco­nomic sys­tem. Be­cause of the hous­ing mar­ket bub­ble’s cen­tral role in the col­lapse, fore­clo­sures are the best rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the hypocrisy of the cur­rent sys­tem—one in which per­pe­tra­tors re­ceive tril­lion-dol­lar bailouts, while vic­tims are mailed evic­tion no­tices.

Suc­cess­ful dis­rup­tions of this sys­tem, then, be­come both real neigh­bor­hood ac­tions to save fam­i­lies from home­less­ness, and sym­bolic mes­sages to Wall Street that the peo­ple will no longer tol­er­ate the su­premacy of prop­erty rights over human rights.