Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Neighbors Helping Neighbors—to Break Into Vacant Houses
Poverty rights activists broke into at least a dozen vacant Minneapolis buildings this week and helped homeless families move in.
"This is the modern underground railroad," said Cheri Honkala, National Organizer for the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, the group organizing the "takeovers."
This week's actions are part of a growing national movement to illegally open up thousands of vacant, foreclosed homes to provide housing for the growing number of homeless people. Over 3,000 Minneapolis homes went into foreclosure in 2008. Advocates estimate that over 7,000 Minnesotans are homeless. Most Twin Cities' homeless shelters have been filled to capacity for months.
On a recent afternoon, organizers planned their next takeover while eating cabbage, rice, sausage, and corn bread prepared by Rosemary, a 59-year-old African American woman facing eviction from her home. Rosemary, who asked that her last name not be used, plans to remain in her house illegally after the March 31 eviction date. In the meantime, she spends her time organizing for tenant's rights.
"Welcome to the revolution," Rosemary said, greeting a homeless couple looking for housing.
Lonnetta and Dwayne took a seat on Rosemary's couch. Dwayne, 52, walking on crutches from a series of recent foot surgeries, explained that he lost his janitorial job in June when he broke his foot. The married couple asked that their last name not be used.
"Welcome to the Revolution!"
Forced to survive on Lonnetta's $637 a month Social Security check, the couple soon became homeless. Social service providers told them to stay at Harbor Light, a homeless shelter in downtown Minneapolis, where the couple would be housed on different floors. Lonnetta, 48, feared being separated from her sick husband who she said needs frequent reminders to take his medication. Instead, the couple started living out of their truck.
A relative put Lonnetta and Dwayne in contact with the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, a national anti-poverty organization based in Minneapolis.
Honkala, the group's National Organizer, became an activist in her teenage years when she and her young son lived in her car after becoming homeless. When a drunk driver hit the car one night, Honkala said she got fed up, and moved into a vacant Minneapolis HUD property for several months.
After years of anti-poverty work, Honkala rose to national prominence in the 1990s by founding the Kensington Welfare Rights Union in an impoverished Philadelphia neighborhood. The activist group helped move homeless families into vacant properties, and used the publicity from those occupations to force the city to issue housing vouchers.
Honkala moved back to Minneapolis two years ago and started matching homeless families with vacant buildings. She estimates that about forty families have been housed since her return, including twelve this week.
Honkala met Dwayne and Lonnetta last week. She offered to find them housing in a vacant home. The couple readily agreed.
The plan turned out to be more difficult than the couple anticipated. Activists first attempted to house the couple in a vacant South Minneapolis home. A city inspector and the police soon arrived and demanded they leave. The police issued trespassing citations to Lonnetta, Dwayne, Honkala, and Manuel Levinsholden, a 19-year-old organizer. Honkala said that a pro bono attorney will provide legal assistance.
Activists then led the couple to Rosemary's house, where they hoped to house the couple in one of the block's five vacant homes. While chatting in Rosemary's living room, Honkala received a phone call. "Well, that's not going to work," she said. "Burglar alarms."
However, with no shortage of properties to choose from, it only took a few phone calls to find a new location several blocks away. Within a few minutes, Honkala, Levinsholden, Lonnetta, and Dwayne were inside a large, empty yellow duplex.
Dwayne cautiously walked around broken glass on the kitchen floor and made his way into the dining room, surveying the hardwood floors and large windows. "I want it," he said.
"Look at that bathroom," said Lonnetta, turning on what appeared to be a brand new light fixture. "That's pretty." She then made her way into the living room, painted blue, but marked with dozens of white splotches to cover up graffiti.
When asked how the activists will get the heat and hot water turned on, Honkala grinned and said, "God turns on the utilities."
Rosemary, who came by to inspect the couple's new home, stumbled while walking up the steep staircase to the second floor. After dusting herself off, she looked around the upstairs kitchen: a row of old wooden cabinets and an empty space where a dishwasher might have been. "Not bad," she said.
Meanwhile, Honkala grabbed several documents left on the downstairs kitchen counter, including paperwork stating that HUD owns the house. One document indicated that the home was last inspected on February 3rd.
"This is just a waste," she said. "It's a waste to have thousands of empty homes like this and people with no place to live." Organizers plan to provide furniture and help the families with basic renovations.
Honkala said that the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign will continue to house the homeless in vacant buildings until the government can provide a safe, affordable alternative. More takeovers are planned for this weekend.
Meanwhile, Rosemary faces eviction in a few weeks, but has no plans to leave. "We'll pack my house with people," she said. "It'll be a showdown."
"Wait," Dwayne said, looking surprised. "You're going to lose your home, too?" He shook his head. "No man, we ain't gonna let them do that, no way. We're neighbors."
Madeleine Baran is a freelance journalist, specializing in labor and poverty issues. Her articles have appeared in The New York Daily News, Dollars & Sense, Clamor, The New Standard, and other publications.
- Posted in
50 Comments so far
Show AllThis would probably be w & dick's greatest achievements. People forced to become criminals to live.
It sounds good at first blush, but I see a situation ripe for exploitation by the elites to further divide us. Families just evicted are unlikely to be sympathetic to families placed in these just-vacated homes, unless there's a lot of time and energy put into solidarity-building, educating and organizing.
That being said, anything that disrupts the orderly process of pauperization is to be applauded.
Republicans will tell you that it is all their own fault for getting loans that they cannot afford and buying homes that were well outside of their sensible price range.
They will then smuggly inform you about how their own situation is OK implying that they are models of prudence and provide a lifestyle that all should emulate.
Next they will spit poison about how they do not want a shred of their own taxes going to help people who have made all these bad decisions.
This is not an uncommon reaction to what is happening to their neighbors....
I find it amazing how the group who rails against the destruction of our 'moral values' conveniently forget their own moral obligations so easily.
This is not a Republican or Democratic question and no matter your political persuasion, this is not liberal or conservative, a criminal is a criminal. Theft is theft.
I will go further an simply say that anyone that defends this type of behavior is no better than a thief themselves. This will lead to real trajedy.
Thomas More February 18th, 2009 12:25 pm
"This will lead to real trajedy." [sic]
How?
Well, technically it can. See, it you can't even claim partial ownership as in paying your monthly mortgages, there's no sense as to who really owns the house and no amount of laws will protect anyone living in those broken in homes. What needs to be done is snatching ownership from the elites because right now, the banks still own the homes and they will be heavily armed. In fact, in my state, whenever a real estate or bank person has appointments, they're usually accompanied by heavily armed bodyguards.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
>>I will go further an simply say that anyone that defends this type of behavior is no better than a thief themselves. This will lead to real trajedy.
It seems you live on lands stolen from another yet you have no problems with that.
You are also a supporter of Peoples from Europe stealing lands from Palestinians.
If these people breaking into houses used guns would you be more supportive of them?
In other news HOMES in the United States of America are being demolished because they cannot be sold. This while thousands live in the streets. This waste of resources time and labor is called "The Efficiency of the Free market".
In the 1930's during the depression people who had no money to afford FOOD in a land of plenty (The United States of America) broke into grocery stores to get enough to eat.
They should have just starved, Right Thomas?
Specifically, he lives on a Mexican land stolen by violent white slaveholding racists!
---USAn---
aaaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhh
My reaction exactly. The sheer callousness expressed in Mr. More's remarks is exasperating and stunning.
Better that people like him face total destitution and homelessness someday, and thereby learn comapssion.
--USAn---
That is technically true because it gets more difficult to claim ownership and without any security there really is no hope for living peacefully. Housing is dead cheap in my state and I believe rural TX is no different. How about building homes in these places and offering them for truly low prices?
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Our economic system itself is theft!
What is the profit of a firm - the appreciation of it's stock - represent but the theft of the real value of a person's labor and the natural wealth of the earth beneath the people's feet!
Unregulated markets themselves are theft, as one of the bargainers - the corporate employer, the bank, the landlord, the foodstuff or supermarket monopoly, can bide their time, while at the other end of the bargain, the worker must pay or offer whatever price that is asked, or freeze and starve!
---USAn---
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
You really do hate Americans, don't you, Thomas. Remember when you hurled that little bit of invective at me, you half-assed poser pig? Let me qualify that: You surely do hate poor Americans screwed over to the tune of $Trillions of dollars by the rich Americans you slavishly worship and blindly obey. Six months ago there were an estimated 3 million homeless Americans here in this predominantly "Christian" country, and approximately 18 million empty homes. Care to guess what those figures will be in another six months. You are a fool.
Mr More may not worshiping the rich; he is probably one of the rich himself! From my experiences with rich poeple, his viewpoints are very typical of the rich class.
The rich also usually exude a condescending: "I'm smarter and superior to you" that positively enrages me.
Workers Arise!
---USAn---
kw
You just can't have families living on the street. An emergency situation requires emergency measures and I think it is completely ok to occupy vacant houses. In the 70s and 80s young people in several European cities (e.g. Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin) occupied vacant homes and effectively put an end to a type of speculation. Many of them still live in these houses, some were evicted, others turned the occupation into an arrangement with the authorities. The German government today introduced a law that allows the government to expropriate banks. Conservatives are still weeping. The reason was because an American investor tried to jack up the price for his shares. This particular bank is one of the crucial ones. If it fails, many others will fail too. So now the German government is calling the shots and if the investor doesn't agree with the price he is offered, then Germany will expropriate the bank and pay him the current market value. Period.
Also, in London in the 70's it was quite common to have squatters live in abandoned houses.
As a matter of fact, the squatters paid 1 pound, 80 pence a week to the borough and they in turn made sure the electrical wiring was safe and the plumbing worked.
Squatting was quite common before Margaret Thatcher came into power. And it was not necessarily for the down and out either. Lots of young people, ex-pats (many Americans), artists, non-conformists, etc. Many people even worked.
It seemed to work fine. What's the big deal if people live in abandoned houses?
Families living on the street, in shelters or in vehicles are the real tragedy.
Living on the street or in a car with your kids is a tragedy, as blessthebeasts says.
Sometimes breaking the law to protect his or her family is all a person can do. What do you think of people who broke the windows of supermarkets to get food and water during Katrina? The sad part is that they had to, because we did not respond as brothers and sisters to their need. My own grandmother made and sold illegal moonshine after her husband was killed in a mine. Did the mining company help? No. Was there welfare? No. She did what she had to do and I am damn proud of her.
I hope the mortgage reforms proposed today will be implemented quickly and will have the effect we desire, which is to keep more families legally in their own homes. Then they will not face the sad choice between breaking the law and endangering their children.
Joe
The job losses and forclosures are accelerating with no slow down in sight.
Does Washington expect that millions of people are going to say "thank you" and live on the streets in the dead of winter?
These lawmakers on Capitol Hill have it too easy with their "automatic" pay raises and the best benefit packages money can buy. Sadly, most of them don't care about people who are suffering in this crisis as long their jobs are secure and they don't have to worry about living in a cardboard box on the street.
These human rights groups are gathering steam all over the country and placing people into vacant homes. Local police and court systems are going to be flooded with cases like these very soon, costing local taxpayers even more money as Washington drags its feet to correct the problem.
"Theft is theft."
What is stolen? Empty space?
Meanwhile, anonymous banksters have stolen trillions of your money through the Fed's special bailout window trying to recapitalize/financialize a criminal housing bubble, millions are pauperized with no hope of government help, and you, Thomas More have finally shown yourself for the troll you really are after a steady stream of pretense at being "reasonable" here at CD. You are truly a "man without qualities."
Necessity knows no law... Consider the homeless in Minnesota as frozen in the snows of Stalingrad. Our Media publish neither pictures of the real hot wars nor of the War at Home. Has a crooked bankster gone to jail yet?
-30-
Uh, the homeless are welcome to come to my state and populate our otherwise depressing rural towns. Let us offer jobs to build homes for the otherwise homeless. And please overthrow the DEA so that my state can actually build more hemp homes and go green for a change. Thank you.
Also, the banks still own the homes so until we the people can take ownership away from those elites, we're still screwed.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
The Diggers in England were squatters reclaiming fallow land by absentee landlords...
There are squatters rights to claim title to abandoned buildings even today...
The Landless workers movement in Brazil has been reclaiming farmland for indigenous and rural folks from the mega plantations...
Since the banksters and developers recieved subsidies to drain our wetlands and pave our farm land with stripmall suburbia...
I think it is understandable why some would choose to squat when there are millions of vacant homes and millions of homeless...
Those squatters can turn their lawns into gardens and yards into communal space... With chickens, goats, etc...
An unoccupied house gets vandalized or delapidates more quickly on it's own than one kept warm and clean by inhabinants...
Unless the inhabitants break the plumbing from flushing things down the toilet and attract hordes of roaches from never taking out the trash.
In some states shooting trespassers destroying private property is legal.
Have you ever been a landlord...? Had to pick up after a tenant when they trash the place?
I know what you are talking about... Renters do it all the time... Even owners trash their own place, then sell it...
I say let them squat till the banks figure out how to "fix" their own bankrupted system, then work out an arrangement with the tenants...
genicon
The rich-filth that have stolen billions, and turned the country into heaven for the greedy rip off artists on Wall Street are the problem, not some homeless person trying to stay out of the rain.
The next step they should take is to plow up all available land, bank owned or not, and plant food.The step after that is to get the local police to refuse to act in the banks interests, with evictions. Let the bankers themselves try to evict.
Do all these things and the revolution will be under way before you know it.
Welcome to the Revolution! With the foreclosure crisis showing no signs of abating, what rational alternatives are there? Homes are empty. People need homes. Looks like a pretty simple equation to me. Until the government nationalizes the banks, siezes the properties and redistributes them, the people must find shelter for themselves. The need is immediate. The expedient solution clear. How does it benefit a lending agency, anyway, to allow a house to stand vacant for so long, subject to vandalism and decay? In cities around the world, squatters have occupied rundown vacant buildings and they have revitalized the neighborhoods over time, often creating vibrant communities of art and culture. Eventually the value of the real estate rises.
Anyway - and I think this is the key in the word 'revolution' - the reasonable process of giving empty homes to people is a part of a broader mindset that is not focused on egregious profiteering by a few (which is, of course, the heart of capitalism) but on human needs and on the understanding that those needs are equal. We do not HAVE to adhere to the 'bottom line' philosophy. In fact, if we looked around us, we would probably admit that most of everything in our lives is already based on something other than the bottom line. In our families we redistribute, in our churches we redistribute, in our public places, our libraries, our schools, our roads, our security, we redistribute. We do all this because we know we are connected. When we have a child who is disabled or impaired we don't say he or she is lesser, we don't see how we can get profit out of them, or make any dollar measure of them. As we are truly human, we truly care for them and see them as equal to ourselves and others and as equally deserving.
Exploitation, greed, will always exist. But why have we made these things the motto for our country, a goal for our lives? If we can turn our collective focus around, I think that those who have in effect become the celebrities of greed (the Trumps and the Madoffs and all those we have been starstruck by simply because they have money) will find themselves increasingly isolated, slowly denuded - and maybe someday they will turn around too and join the human race.... (think of Madoff, under house arrest, in his luxury Manhattan penthouse apartment). What a dream, eh? A good one though.
A Zen monk once said "If you are going to dream, make it a good dream".
Welcome to the Revolution!
if the homes not bein used whats the harm?
The road to evil is paved with good intentions. Sure housing the homeless in foreclosed homes is good intentioned. It is also illegal for a reason. Thieves! Theft. I bet those people don't care for where they live. There is a reason renters demand a security deposit.
While some homeless are nice people with bad breaks, a great many of them are criminals. I would NOT want them setting up a meth lab in an abandoned house near me.
I might sing a different tune if I was homeless myself, but for now I can sit in my family home (paid off completely because I know to save money) and disapprove.
The meth labs are run by bored middle-class kids in rural and small towns USA. Living in the city, and seeing homeless poeple every day, I have never heard of "meth labs" until I traveled to Montana; later I heard of one up in the town of Punxatawney.
Your characterization of the homeless as "criminals" is classist, callous, and flat-out wrong.
---USAn---
Wow, you have selective reading comprehension. I wrote SOME homeless are criminals. And while meth might not be the drug of choice for you city folks who enjoy ecstasy, LSD, and crack cocaine, it is still homeless people who are involving in drugs and muggings. At least moreso than people with homes.
You wrote ". . . a great many of them are criminals . . ." woth absolutely no substantiation. You follow up that slander with another equally ignorant generalization in this post.
Please show us some basis for these claims other than your own narrowmindedness.
q
I think some of these people, like Mr. More, would like to see us recreate life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Probably applauds Jean Valjean, having stolen a small loaf of bread to feed his starving family, being sentenced to nineteen years chained to an oar in a government galley. (Presumably, the family starved.)
Or perhaps we can borrow from "A Christmas Carol" by Dickens.
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."
Oh, yes, we've managed to turn the clock back a long way in the last dozen years, but as the wars and the giveaways to the rich continue, I guess The Obamanation has a long way further to take us.
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Santyana
HUD owns these houses? Mr. Obama, it's time to instruct the gov't to devise a way to turn these houses over to the real owners: the American people. This isn't rocket science: surely someone as smart as you can figure out a way to help the poorest among us lift themselves out of the gutter by owning their own home?
If nothing else, let Habitat for Humanity run the program. They already know how to help people.
These "toxic assets" will simply fall down unless someone lives in them and takes care of them. America, we can do it!
LeeAnnG
Exactly what I was thinking! If HUD owns the homes, then HUD should be taking immediate steps to put people in them. And the government should be stopping foreclosures on anyone who is a single home owner with an income less than the amount needed to pay for the home. (Not including, of course, people making enough to purchase a less expensive home. This should not pertain to those making 6 figures or more.)
It's absurd to put people out on the street and expect them to continue working out of their cars or homeless shelters. It's even worse when working people lose their homes because of health care - the most common reason why "regular" people go bankrupt.
When I was growing up in the 60s, there was a lot of government housing for low income families, and I knew many kids who lived in these homes. They were clean, had plenty of room, and were very affordable. I don't know if this even exists any more.
So the new residents are paying property taxes, utilities and taking care of the yard as well? Or is it the People's Economic Human Rights Campaign who is paying all that?
Actually, the government should be paying them for guarding the houses so they won't be vandalized. Anyone who is homeless should be put on a government list to be "house stewards" for HUD at 400 a month or so.
I own my own home and I support this. It's not charity. It's common sense and good investment in good citizenship. Or would you prefer investing in criminals, more cops and bigger prisons? The rich won't help and they are the biggest thieves, tax evaders and welfare cheats around. The people are doing this out of necessity, not greed. Stop your whining. What about the 17,000 rich Americans with numbered accounts that the US Government just fined UBS $780 MILLION for? Oh, is that different now?
I hope I did not understand this right. So the gov should pay people to live in houses?
So what would my incentive be to work and purchase a home if i get paid just to live in one? let's get back to earth and reality.
All the money that Bush gave to his rich banker friends and all the money that Obama gave to his equally rich liberal friends come from taxes, that means me and you. If you are happy with how your money is being spent then you are a lucky person. Cuz I definetly am not.
Housesitters get paid to be caretakers all the time... Why the fuss?
theinitiate
Yes!!Revolution-this is ACTION! It'll be interesting to see how this turns out... what will happen to these people in legal terms, when "the law" finds out. But yet, if the economy continues to spiral down, then there may truly be an army of "real estate revolutionaries" to move into even more empty houses.
theinitiate
Sorry-it seems that my posts may sound very negative. I've been meaning to write that I am trying to look to the positive and yes- hope that the steps that Obama is taking will at least stop the bleeding and that more steps will actually work to bring about REAL TRANSFORMATION. That's the the question though. There are so many issues and deep problems that we really do need real change. I'm hoping for progress, not dooms day. But over all I'm keeping a balance between my optimism and my realism.
Way back In Grade school our school took us on this field trip to camp at a remote lake near Lac La Biche Alberta.
Now this before cell phones and all our modern conveniences. Indeed we did not even have a phone on the house I grew up in.
It was over a long weekend, the children taking enough of their own food to eat for the three days and the bus to return to pick us up on the Monday.
In any case while away from the campsite we had built complete with leanto's and the like , some bears stumbled across our little site and savaged the camp. They got into everything, wrecking the leanto's and eating all our food. By time we got back from a hike we had been on it started to rain, our sleeping bags were soaked, our food all eaten and scattered.
There was an old cabin on the lake the teacher broke into. No phone of course or even electricity, but it was warm and had an old wood heater and plenty in the way of canned food. There was really no way of contact with the outside world so we stayed there until the bus returned to back us up.
As it turned out the Cabin belonged to an old native trapper. All he ended up asking for was that the lock we broke be replaced. He wanted nothing for the food we ate stating that had he been there he would have shared it with us anyways and saw no reason why he should charge MONEY for it.
I suppose had this happened in the world some envision this was B and E and theft and we should have all been charged and spent a few years in Juvenile detention to "learn a lesson".
I can tell you that what we experienced from the Indian trapper (who was likely poorer then most of us) was a MUCH better lesson.
A difference exists between honestly coming forward and reimbursing someone for adverse circumstances AND simply stealing. House squatting is simply stealing, unless the squatters are paying property taxes and doing things like mowing the lawn and fixing the roof. Upkeep on the property is a form of rent.
And charity is a personal choice, it shouldn't be forced upon anyone. Doing so is like any other 'might makes right' scenario, regardless of good intentions.
>>A difference exists between honestly coming forward and reimbursing someone for adverse circumstances AND simply stealing. House squatting is simply stealing, unless the squatters are paying property taxes and doing things like mowing the lawn and fixing the roof. Upkeep on the property is a form of rent.
By whose definition?
When the Government of Bolivia PRIVATIXED the fresh water supply and it became illegal for people to take fresh water from a reservoir because "It was someone elses property" were the Bolivians that rose up just a bunch of thieves?
It is a COMMUNITY of people that determine property laws. It is NOT an Inviolate rule of nature.
These people you speak of labored and paid taxes, They are members of the community just as were the Peasants who rose up against the Nobility in France.
If a Government can not or will not provide for the welfare of its people then they serve no purpose. If a Governments laws can not or will not provide for the welfare of the people , then the people have the right to overturn them.
Read your declaration of Independence. All of those revolutionaries BROKE the LAW.
You are right. As a matter of fact there is a legal term to describe it," Vox populai, Vox Dei". It literally means the that that to a judge, the voice of the people is tantamount to the voice of God. This is not the same as mob rule. A response to a long train of abuses is a demand for justice and decency. The important thing is to keep public opinion on your side and recruit people in the legal and law enforcement community whenever possible. God Bless you.
"If a Government can not or will not provide for the welfare of its people then they serve no purpose. If a Governments laws can not or will not provide for the welfare of the people , then the people have the right to overturn them."
Eric Holder is correct....we're "a nation of cowards".
And, since our government ignores 90% of us, and does all it can to protect and boost the welfare of the remaining 10%, what is left for the rest of us? What are we to do? Personally, I think the time has come for throwing a few kegs of tea into Boston Harbor.
-- ekaton aka d.k.shaw
He was not poorer than you. He was a rich man.
Joe
If you can keep this up, it will clarify that foreclosure is not a viable option for the banks. You also need to teach your local jury pool that they have an absolute right to make a not guilty finding, and keep your public nose clean while doing all this. Make the foreclosing or evicting bank prove they own the property. If they can't, and often they've screwed up the paperwork as a result of the way they derivitized the mortgages or just been sloppy. Until they come up with the original document, what is presented might easily be a forgery. If you elect local judges, do not vote for incumbents. The voting block will thereby become a factor in judicial decision making, whoever wins an election.
What did jesus do when someone asked for his coat? oh thats right he told them to go get there own damn coat.
LeeAnnG
This situation has been a long time coming. In and around big cities like New York, Philadelphia, and D.C., the cost of housing has far outweighed incomes for years. I have family members who moved to Maryland near D.C. and got work at GW University several years ago. This was after they could not find any decent jobs in West Virginia even with degrees and some good work experience. Their apartment started at around $800 a month, but the rent went up systematically.
They managed (through a bizarre fluke) to get a downpayment and bought a home in Northern MD, which was the only place they could afford - and it was over $250,000. But they couldn't find jobs nearby, so they commuted to work, which sometimes took as much as 3 hours one way. After a year, during which they both filled out hundreds of applications, GWU moved their department to Virginia and they both lost their jobs. But since they were offered to keep the jobs and commute another huge distance, they were not eligible for unemployment. And they couldn't sell their home and move because of Fanny Mae regulations.
After the department moved, both of them got temp jobs in Baltimore. However, they didn't make enough to meet their $1,000 per month mortgage. Fortunately for them, several family members were able to pay their mortgage two or three times before they both got "real," but relatively low paying jobs. Enough to live comfortably and pay their bills.
Last year, one of them lost his job, but was able to get another pretty quickly. In an investment firm. Yesterday the management came to him, told him he'd been downsized and didn't even let him finish out the day. Nice. At least this time he can get unemployment and he also knows people in the temp agencies. And has much more experience than he did when he first moved to MD.
Without their families, these hardworking young people could be homeless. More power to anyone who helps people like this.