Picture yourself in this scenario: You are homeless. The nicer shelters are full; the others are places you would not want to house your dog, much less yourself or your family. Someone offers you an opportunity to stay rent-free in a house; all you have to do is put the utilities in your name and provide upkeep on the property. You gladly accept the offer, grateful for a chance to rebuild. It sounds like a wonderful idea. It's too bad the house in which you now reside does not belong to the person who is encouraging you to stay there. In fact, if police decide to get involved, you could be charged and arrested.
Meet Max Rameau--unshaven, driving a beat-up car, wearing grungy cut-off sweat pants. The Miami resident and computer analyst formed "Take Back the Land", an activist organization that places homeless people in foreclosed homes without permission of the homeowner. He breaks into homes, shows them to prospective "clients", and assists the new "owners" with obtaining second-hand furniture, yard upkeep, and cleaning supplies. He charges them nothing for this service.
"I think everyone deserves a home," says Rameau. "Homeless people across the country are squatting in empty homes. The question is: Is this going to be done out of desperation or with direction?"
Squatters moving into vacant homes is nothing new. Go to bed one night and the home next to you is empty; wake up the next morning and you have new neighbors, many who turn to illegal activities such as prostitution and drug-dealing to survive. It can make living in even upscale neighborhoods a dangerous proposition.
With the housing market collapsing, many communities are trying to come up with solutions to prevent this scenario. In Cleveland, advocates are working with the city to allow homeless people to legally move into and repair empty, dilapidated houses. Some property owners in Atlanta are paying homeless people to live in abandoned homes as a security measure. Each of these solutions is legal. In Miami, Rameau and his organization don't try working with either city officials or homeowners. They illegally move people into unoccupied homes--scouting out prospective vacancies, breaking into them, moving a homeless family in, changing locks.
Example: Marie Nadine Pierre, 39, had been sleeping at a shelter with her toddler. She said she had been homeless off and on for a year, after losing various jobs and getting evicted from several apartments. In November, Rameau drove her to a foreclosed home in a primariy Haitian neighborhood. The house had been purchased in 2006 for $430,000 and the owner rented it to friends of Rameau. When the homeowner allowed the home to go into foreclosure in October, Rameau's friends were evicted. Rameau swooped in, helping Pierre move in with her daughter. His justification is that having someone live in the house prevents thieves from ransacking it and squatters from moving in.
Pierre is thrilled. "My heart is heavy. I've lived in a lot of different shelters, a lot of bad situations. In my own home, I'm free. I'm a human being now."
Both Rameau and Pierre could be arrested on various charges ranging from breaking and entering, to trespassing, to vandalism. But Miami spokeswoman Kelly Penton says that the city is not taking steps to stop Rameau or his organization from continuing their illegal activity. "There are no actions on the city's part to stop this," she says in an e-mail. "It is important to note that if people trespass into private property, it is up to the property owner to take action to remove those individuals." For his part, Rameau is not worried. "There's a real need here, and there's a disconnect between the need and the law," he says. "Being arrested is just one of the potential factors in doing this."
I am sure Rameau's heart is in the right place, although I strongly disagree with his end-justifies-the-means mentality. Other activists in other communities are working to find legal ways to resolve their issues; Rameau should be willing to do the same. But I must wonder why Rameau's group does not focus on the newly-homeless--in other words, the families who owned the home initially. If Rameau would put his efforts into keeping the existing homeowners in their home, he would prevent the growth of the homeless population, allow neighborhoods to keep good neighbors in the home, and maintain home values in the neighborhood. His excuses about the disconnect between the need and the law are valid, but it is not his group's place to reinterpret law, and it is not as if other programs for the homeless do not exist. He needs to follow the laws or suffer the consequences, and allow property owners to make the decision what to do with their own property.
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