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Homeless Advocacy Group Teaches Squatting, FOX News Licks Lips
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Mar 25, 2012
Modified Mar 25, 2012
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Mar 25, 2012
Modified Mar 25, 2012
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Cue the ACORN outrage: The Post reports that the taxpayer-supported organization Picture the Homeless hosts "a crash course on squatting" in city-owned buildings.
A reporter followed one of the organization's boardmembers, Andres Perez, as he led a group of around 20 people in a tutorial of how to "homestead" at the Arlington Village complex in East New York. “The best time to enter a building is in the late hours,” Perez reportedly said, You make sure you have your proper tools. You remove the chains and padlock, and then you go in.”
Perez then explained how to fill out a change-of-address form with the USPS, and how to set up utilities in a vacant apartment, so that “nine out of 10 times the courts will allow you to be able to have control of the property." Homesteading is an old tactic that has been successfully used by low-income residents to rehabilitate and inhabit empty or run-down properties—right now New York has more vacant lots and buildings than it does homeless people.
But the Post finds residents of Arlington Village who are fed up with "pimps" and drug users who seemingly find a way in. One 35-year resident says a group of them inhabited two apartments for a time. “There were hookers. They were smoking crack. There were condoms all over the floor. There were hundreds of them.” No word on how many of the pimps and crackheads filled out a change-of-address form and began paying a Con-Ed bill.
And so a controversial yet effective tactic to house people with nowhere else to turn at a time when the city is making it tougher to seek shelter is branded as a weapon wielded by pimps and thugs. A City Council spokesperson told the paper, “We’re deeply troubled by reports that Picture the Homeless is instructing New Yorkers in how to engage in dangerous and illegal activities. If these reports are in fact true, they call the group’s entire funding into question.”
Over the past five years the organization, which has been involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, received around $240K from the city. But FOX News is running the story on the front page, so look for the "damning" James O'Keefe video to be released any day now.
Tagged
east new york
homelessness
homesteading
Picture the Homeless
squatting
sweat equity
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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