Crouching in the United States illustrates the legal and practical aspects of squatting (unauthorized use of real estate) in the United States.
The squatting law varies from one state to another and from one city to another. For the most part, however, squats are rarely tolerated to a certain degree for long periods, especially in cities. There were exceptions, especially in 2002 when the New York City government agreed to hand over eleven buildings on the Lower East Side to an established nonprofit group, provided that the apartment would be handed over to the tenants. as a low-income housing cooperative.
Squatters can be young people living in punk homes or low-income or homeless people. Recently more and more people are squatting home foreclosed. There are also reports of squats in their own home being taken over and Michael Feroli (chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase) has commented on the economic benefits of "rent" or the additional income provided to spend by people who do not meet their mortgages. repayment.
Video Squatting in the United States
California Gold Rush
In January 1848, two weeks after California was handed over to the United States, gold was discovered in California, resulting in a flood of fortune-seekers who were interested in the country in the months and years ahead. Due to the legal ambiguity that exists about squatting on federal ground, each mining camp develops a squatting law to fill the legal void. Policies relating to waivers and job requirements are set on a camp-by-camp basis. As extraction becomes more capital-intensive, the share of mining camps that allow companies to own land significantly increases.
Squatting is used by American settlers to make claims that can be used to challenge Californios ranchos ground grant before the Public Land Commission and US courts.
Maps Squatting in the United States
Legal protection
Homestead laws of the United States legally recognize the concept of the principle of homelessness and distinguish it from squatting, because the law gives its occupants a legal way to occupy 'unclaimed' land. In addition, US states with housing shortages tend to tolerate squatters on property waiting for redevelopment until the developers are ready to begin work. However, at that point, the law tends to apply. The Homestead Act of 1862 was signed by Abraham Lincoln on 20 May 1862, and was enacted to encourage an unresolved land reallocation in the West. The law applies to US citizens and prospective citizens who have never surrendered weapons against the US government. It took a five-year commitment, during which time the landowner had to build a house twelve by fourteen feet, and develop or work on a 160 acre (0.65 km km 2 ) plot of land allocated. After five years of making a positive contribution to the guesthouse, the applicant may submit a request for a deed to the property, which requires the submission of documents to the Public Land Office in Washington, DC and, from there, "legal claims are granted patent and clear." In addition, there are loopholes for this law, including provisions made for those serving in the US military. After the Civil War, Union veterans could reduce the time spent in the army from the requirements of five years of forest-keeping.
In common law, through a legally recognized concept of negative ownership, squatters can become bona fide property owners without compensation to previous owners. Poor ownership is the process by which a person acquires property rights to a plot of land by occupying it for several years as necessary, dictating differently in practice by each country's limitation law for eviction action. An important component of this transfer of ownership requires that the landowner be conscious (or should be aware) of the land occupation and that he has done nothing to end it. If land use by new occupants is not checked for several years, new residents can claim legal title to the land. Occupants must show that "ownership is real, open, famous, exclusive, unfriendly, under the protection of claims or rights, and sustained and uninterrupted for the legal period." As noted by Erin Wiegand, the most difficult part of claiming disadvantaged tenure on the part of squatters is the "sustainable" part. Squatting is a very temporary lifestyle and many people are evicted frequently. In a recent article on foreclosures in the United States, a squatter in Miami declared his home, "It's a beautiful castle and it's only temporary for me, if I can be here 24 hours, I'm grateful." Thus, while adverse ownership enables the legality of a squatter situation, it is not uncommon that one can claim sustainable land tenure long enough to claim harmful ownership.
Occupation issues
Laws based on the ownership interpretation of property contracts make it easy for holders of deeds to evict squatters under the law of loosening or entering without permission. The situation is more complicated for legal residents who fail to make rental or mortgage payments, but the results are almost the same.
Most squats in the US depend on law enforcement, and people who are legally considered property owners are not aware of their occupants. Often, the most important factor in longevity squatting in the US is the apathetic attitude of owners and the privacy of neighbors to call the police. This is not always the case, especially in the era of Western expansion, where the federal government specifically recognizes the rights of squatters. For example, see the 1841 Preemption Act.
Squatting as an act of housing justice
Community organizations have helped the homeless to take over empty buildings not only as shelter but also part of a larger campaign to illuminate inequalities in housing and support changes in housing and land issues.
ACORN launches a national campaign
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN) is one of the first organizations in the US to launch a national squat campaign to challenge and change federal and local housing policies to provide more affordable housing.
In 1979, ACORN launched a squatting campaign to protest against the mismanagement of the Urban Homesteading Program. The squatting effort held 200 people in 13 cities between 1979 and 1982. In June 1982 ACORN built a tent city in Washington, D.C. and held a congressional meeting to draw attention to the fate of the homeless. In 1983, as a result of their demonstration, many of ACORN's suggestions were incorporated into the Urban and Rural Recovery-Rural Act of 1983. This brought in a localized urban homesteading period in which the tax arrears of property at the municipal level were included in the program.
In 1981, ACORN and the Inner-City Organizing Network moved hundreds of people to vacant buildings in Philadelphia. Squatter action creates a kind of turmoil that the Federal government is involved in offering housing to squatters in 67 federal buildings if they agree to leave.
Between June 15 and August 2, 1985, ACORN supported the homeless to take over 25 town-owned buildings in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York. During the action 11 people were arrested. The city responded by giving ex-squatters 58 city-owned buildings, money for technical and architectural assistance, and $ 2.7 million in rehabilitation loans. To preserve democratic decision-making and affordability in buildings, squatters organize themselves into the collective members of the Mutual Housing Association. In a collective housing association, environmentalists form collectively, donating money and lots of sweat equity to rehabilitate buildings for their own use in return for public support and limited ownership. Collective - in this case the New York Mutual Housing Association - defend the rights to the land. If the owner chooses to sell, the association has the right to buy back for a price that reflects only the individual investment, not the market.
Operation Homestead
In 1988, Operation Homestead in Seattle began to occupy the building and negotiate their sale to a low-income nonprofit housing organization. In 1993, they managed to reclaim 300 units. In May 1991 Operation Homestead (OH) occupied Arion Court, an empty apartment building, to draw attention to a number of empty housing that made the City deteriorate while there was a great need for affordable housing. As a result of the protests, the building was renovated and converted to 37 low-income household units. Arion Court became the first self-managed permanent housing project for the previous homeless people in Washington state because the population decided the rules and how to enforce it. In 1992, OH occupied the Pacific Hotel, encouraging homes to be handed over to nonprofits for low-income housing. It serves as an emergency shelter until it is renovated and converted in 113 affordable housing units. OH also does work from The McKay Apartments and Gatewood Hotel.
Reload the Land
Take Back the Land is a self-made and self-sustaining Singapore-based "housing group" established in 2006. They went into the empty and abandoned empty house the bank owned and moved the homeless people inside. Take Back the Land organized a slum city called Umoja Village to squat empty land in 2006 and 2007.
House Not a Prison
Homes Not Jails recommends squat homes to end homelessness problems. It has opened "about 500 homes, 95% of which have lasted six months or less.In some cases, squats have lasted for two, three or even six years."
Other groups
Other groups working for housing justice include the Picture of Homeless (New York City), MORE (Missourian Organization for Reform and Empowerment - St. Louis), Right 2 Survive (Portland, Oregon), Organizing for Employment (New York City) PUSH (People United for Sustainable Housing - Buffalo, New York), ONE DC (Washington DC), LIFFT (Low Income Families Fight Together - Miami). In Minnesota, a group known as the Poor People's Economic Campaign has moved families into thirteen empty properties, and one national organizer equates its advocacy work and ministry with a modern "subway."
Nonprofit advocacy
There are nonprofit advocacy groups in many cities across the United States that provide organizational support and political power to the fate of squatters. Nonprofits also help squatters to work on repairing their legitimated apartments, or approved by the appropriate local authorities.
In New York City, the Homesteading Urban Relief Council was at the forefront of the penitentiary movement of the 1970s and 1980s, and has recently been in touch with the city to legitimize squatters' efforts in 11 buildings on the Lower East Side. Although the previous New York City government forcibly transferred many squatters in the 1990s, in 2002 they agreed to sell 11 buildings for $ 1 per unit to UHAB. The buildings will be brought into code by squatters (with UHAB assistance) and then the apartments are bought for $ 250 each and the buildings converted to cooperatives are affordable by former squatters.
New York City
In New York City, homeless people crouching in basements like the Freedom Tunnel have been known as Mole People. They are the subject of an award-winning documentary film called Dark Days .
Estimated in the 1990s, there are about 500 to 1,000 squatters occupying 32 buildings on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Buildings have been abandoned as a result of speculation by police owners or raids as part of a crackdown on drug use. When the area becomes gentrified, the squat is evicted, Dos Blockos becomes one. Three buildings on 13th Street were evicted unannounced after a prolonged legal battle in which squatters argued through their lawyer Stanley Cohen that they were entitled to ownership of the building through a disadvantageous ownership since they had lived there since 1983.
In 1995, an initial court order was granted against the eviction plan, but this was canceled by the state.
Although squatting becomes illegal, the artist begins to occupy the building. European squatters who came to New York brought the idea of ​​living together with them like bars, support between squats, and exchange of tools.
In 2002, eleven squats of the remaining twelve on the Lower East Side signed an agreement with the city council mediated by the Urban Relief Council Homesteading. In this project, UHAB bought the building for $ 1 and agreed to help the squatters to perform important renovation works, after which their apartments can be purchased for $ 250 each. UHAB will also train them in running housing cooperatives with limited equity. After prices peaked from the housing boom, some squatters told the press that they wanted to get out of the contract so they could be allowed to sell their units at market prices. No such arrangement is made, but some squatters challenge the contract and believe that the adverse ownership protects their ownership claims.
The first squat to complete the co-op conversion in May 2009 was the Bullet Space, the artist's gallery and residence. Others are C-Squat; as well as the social center ABC No Rio, founded in 1980. In 2012, the Reclaimed Urban Space Museum opened in C-Squat. The museum, an archive of urban activism, offers a walking tour of the squat community.
See also
- Harmful mastery
- inclusive zonation
- Wall Street Hacker
- The Urban Space Reclamation Museum
References
Further reading
- 949 Market (2002) Zine by a group of people crouching in an abandoned swimming pool in a very common way and creating a community center in San Francisco.
- Corr, A. (1999) Not Breaking! Crouching, Rent Strikes, and Land Struggles Worldwide South End Press ISBNÃ, 0-89608-595-3.
- Dobbz, H. (2012) Nine-Ten Legal: Property and Resistance in the United States AK Press.
- Lyle, E. (2008) At Lower Frequency ISBN Skull Press ISBN 978-1-933368-98-6.
- Tobocman, S. War Around - Graphic novel about squatting on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1980 by artist and editor of Illagrated World War 3, Seth Tobocman published by Autonomedia.
External links
- From Urban Homesteading to a New Housing Ecology A project initiated by the Graduate Program in Urban Design and Ecology, Parsons New School for Design, New School, New York City.
- Squattercity Blog Blog by writer Robert Neuwirth, who lives in a wild community all over the developing world.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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