With Occupy Wall Street encampments around the country being dismantled by local law enforcement, offshoot protesters of the movement launched a new campaign on December 6, 2011, called “Occupy Our Homes.” The Washington Post reported on December 9 that protesters around the country tried to prevent banks from reselling foreclosed homes by fixing up the properties and then occupying them with previously homeless families. The Post said that some local city council members “even helped the Occupy protesters clean up a foreclosed home.”
Public Radio International reported that the actions took place in “more than 25 cities from coast to coast.” CNNMoney reported that activists in Atlanta went to the courthouses in three of the area’s largest counties to disrupt foreclosure auctions, hundreds of demonstrators in Brooklyn covered the “For Sale” signs at foreclosed homes throughout the low-income community with Occupy police tape and activists in Chicago were taking over homes left vacant due to foreclosure.
The Post article also noted that this 2010 video of Terry Hoskins, a Moscow, Ohio man who bulldozed his home after needing foreclosure help, was once again being passed around:
A couple months after that video was posted to YouTube, another Ohio man facing foreclosure tried to demolish his house with an SUV. If you do not want to rely on the Occupy protesters or rent a bulldozer to help you deal with foreclosure, you should know that a Chapter 13 or Chapter 7 bankruptcy process is a perfectly legal and sensible alternative that can not only keep you in your home, but also eliminate bills and stop foreclosure. Do you think that the Occupy Our Homes movement will have any effect on the housing crisis?
