Photo By Jeff SkrenesSo, last week, ACORN (a nationwide, grassroots political organization working with low and moderate income people) made announcements of pending "direct actions," the first of which will be a protest at the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday during a foreclosure auction.
Other "direct actions" are planned as well, including taking over vacant buildings so homeless individuals can live inside.
Hawthorne's Housing Director, Jeff Skrenes, is a member of ACORN and, until Sunday afternoon, was the Chair of the Financial Justice Committee for Minnesota ACORN. But this is a case of the acorn falling some distance away from the tree. Jeff finds himself unable to support pending ACORN actions that involve responses to the mortgage crisis. Like taking over vacant buildings.
So...
...Jeff wrote a letter and resigned. I'm not putting the letter up here, because it was written to the ACORN organization, it was not intended as a public manifesto. But the long and the short of it is that Jeff can't support actions against the sheriff because he is fulfilling his official duties. If action is going to be taken to stop foreclosures, we should target the lenders who are actually doing the foreclosures, because they're the ones who can actually make a decision not to foreclose.
Jeff also doesn't support taking over vacant buildings. And there's a whole flapjack stack of reasons there, piled up high, but here's some of them. One reason is that neighborhoods are having a hard enough time trying to repopulate by encouraging the sale of these homes. In the last 3 months, over 95 percent of the sales in Hawthorne were foreclosed properties. (Thanks to Connie Nompelis for that info) It's hard enough to create a marketplace for new home ownership and good landlords, but what happens if Hawthorne becomes known as the place where homeless people take over houses?
Who will want to buy, then? Who will want to live next door to banners hanging out of windows, press conferences at all hours of the night as police plot their moves, and home lighting systems that truly can be measures in "candle power?"
I say these things as somebody who has been involved in taking over a building before, in Seattle, but that was a different time, place, and circumstances. Jeff feels compelled to jump in at this point as I type the blog entry.
"Cheri Honkala--who is with one of the organizations in favor of house takeovers in support of the rights of poor people--was asked in an interview 'What happens with utilities?' And her answer was 'God turns on the utilities.'"
(For the record, that quote was in Insight News)
Jeff says even he, the son of a bishop, doesn't have THAT much faith. Somebody is breaking the law and risking their life to turn on electricity.
Moving on to another reason to oppose the takeover of vacant buildings in North Minneapolis, there's no accountability for the condition of the property or the behavior of the occupants. It would be great if we could petition Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and whoever else to rent out their properties to keep them occupied instead of vacant. If we did it that way, they'd go to the system for a rental license. Then the system that ALREADY EXISTS could hold the occupants accountable for their behavior and the condition of the property.
Last, if you take this simplistic course of logic that there are vacant homes and homeless people, so let the homeless people take over the houses, it won't start and stop with ACORN. (This is my argument, not Jeff's, for the record) Led by charismatic personalities that will emerge to leadership positions under those unusual circumstances, homes will be taken over by the "cardboard sign brigade," by coalitions of upset former renters who were nothing but problems to the neighborhood, anyway, and by ambitious would-be brothel owners. It will anarchy, the end of days, dogs and cats copulating openly, or (to use Jeff's sci-fi geek analogy) "Mad Max/ The Road Warrior, will be walks in the park by comparison."
Here's another reason to oppose this contemplated course of political action. Any buyer of one of these houses will take heat for putting a "poor widdle homeless family" out in the street, kind of like the b.s. the Star Tribune tried to pull with the eviction of 3101 6th St. N.
Nobody would want to buy the houses and take the heat, so the place would sit vacant and unoccupied indefinitely because of the political ramifications of evicting a homeless family.
But, hey, if people want to have that debate...the comment threads are open.
I say these things as somebody who has been involved in taking over a building before, in Seattle, but that was a different time, place, and circumstances. Jeff feels compelled to jump in at this point as I type the blog entry.
"Cheri Honkala--who is with one of the organizations in favor of house takeovers in support of the rights of poor people--was asked in an interview 'What happens with utilities?' And her answer was 'God turns on the utilities.'"
(For the record, that quote was in Insight News)
Jeff says even he, the son of a bishop, doesn't have THAT much faith. Somebody is breaking the law and risking their life to turn on electricity.
Moving on to another reason to oppose the takeover of vacant buildings in North Minneapolis, there's no accountability for the condition of the property or the behavior of the occupants. It would be great if we could petition Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and whoever else to rent out their properties to keep them occupied instead of vacant. If we did it that way, they'd go to the system for a rental license. Then the system that ALREADY EXISTS could hold the occupants accountable for their behavior and the condition of the property.
Last, if you take this simplistic course of logic that there are vacant homes and homeless people, so let the homeless people take over the houses, it won't start and stop with ACORN. (This is my argument, not Jeff's, for the record) Led by charismatic personalities that will emerge to leadership positions under those unusual circumstances, homes will be taken over by the "cardboard sign brigade," by coalitions of upset former renters who were nothing but problems to the neighborhood, anyway, and by ambitious would-be brothel owners. It will anarchy, the end of days, dogs and cats copulating openly, or (to use Jeff's sci-fi geek analogy) "Mad Max/ The Road Warrior, will be walks in the park by comparison."
Here's another reason to oppose this contemplated course of political action. Any buyer of one of these houses will take heat for putting a "poor widdle homeless family" out in the street, kind of like the b.s. the Star Tribune tried to pull with the eviction of 3101 6th St. N.
Nobody would want to buy the houses and take the heat, so the place would sit vacant and unoccupied indefinitely because of the political ramifications of evicting a homeless family.
But, hey, if people want to have that debate...the comment threads are open.
johnny your 'click here' isn't purple.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so I'm in the middle of trying to buy an empty house in the area.
ReplyDeleteIf I come up to it with my Realtor, and there are people inside, I cant actually look at the property.. that, or the chances of someone getting hurt go up dramatically.
Also, Since I am apparently now going to be a homeowner in the area, if I buy one of these empty houses, and I have not moved in yet because I'm doing work on it and I come to the house and find people in it, chances are I'm either shooting them myself rather than stand around asking questions, or, I'm getting the poor "homeless" people arrested.
Lets not worry about what happens if I see someone living in an abandoned house out of the blue. because, if I look over and see candles in a house that I know is supposed to be unoccupied, I'm also calling the cops. I would not want the house next to mine to start on fire....
Oh, and if God could turn on the electricity, he could get the homeless people the money to afford to buy a house.
John,
ReplyDeleteTwo points of correction:
1) The Strib actually ran a somewhat balanced article; it was Channel 5 that totally botched the 3101 coverage,
2) perhaps more importantly, "Mad Max" only has one "x."
Also, our Crime Prevention and Family Safety Committee has asked to discuss this as an agenda item tonight. Hawthorne members are taking a stand.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be nice if the owners of the vacant properties (banks, landlords, whoever) considered hiring people to "house sit" the vacant homes until the house's situation could be resolved. Think about it in terms of those who have lost jobs through no fault of their own. They could have a roof over their heads and a little money to buy groceries while they look for a new job. The vacant homes would no longer be vacant, and someone would be watching over the houses as well. Owners would not have to pay a lot because the house sitter would be getting a place to live. The good reason to pay someone to house sit is that it gives them a feeling of responsibility for the building they are watching, and there is less likely to be damage.
ReplyDeleteYes, of course, there would have to be some kind of screening of the house sitter(s), but there are organizations that routinely screen potential tenants. If everyone could just come together and work toward solutions...
To Anonymous: Yes, I forgot to make the link when I wrote the post, and now I'm on an Apple so...I took out the sentence about "click here," etc. But my post about what I think of this idea of homeless people taking over houses is a few posts back.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I am a serious bleeding heart when it comes to MOST homeless issues. But I don't support taking over buildings in a neighborhood that has enough issues to deal with, without this new issue which is certain--dead on, 100 percent, no doubt about it--CERTAIN to depress the housing market in our neighborhood even further.
To Bert: I sure hope you are making contacts with your neighborhood association, which can be really helpful as you hunt houses and tell you about FINANCIAL GRANTS TO HOME OWNERS worth tens of thousands of dollars.
To Jeff: I agree the STrib article was more balanced than the television coverage, no doubt. But I still wrote a long post called "Talking Back To the Star Tribune" and, well...that blog post speaks for itself. It's a shame that when people open up their mouth and tell big fat lies, some of those lies make their way into newspaper articles. Forty-eight hours notice my (expletive).
I corrected the "Mad Max" spelling, thanks.
Dottie, your moderate idea makes good sense and that's part of the reason I wanted to sponsor a discussion like this, to find some creative alternatives.
ACORN is in City Hall right now, protesting.. Chanting "I believe in Jesus Christ" and "Stop All Evictions." The Jesus chant may actually be something different - I couldn't understand the mummbling with Chicago accents.
ReplyDeleteIt's drawing a crowd. Most of the crowd having eyes that are a-rolling. I felt like countering their "Stop All Evictions" chant with "Pay Your Bills!" I'm heartless.
As a first-time homebuyer with limited funds, I'm looking for a home in Minneapolis. It's probably going to be a foreclosure. I'm not going to sign a mortgage that I can't reasonably pay! And, I'm not going to buy a house that has people living in it.
So Johnny, ACORN is planning an action against a lender on the 19th to convince them to stop foreclosing on homes, until the federal legislation current in congress and bills at the state legislature address the issue. Can we count on you to be there?
ReplyDeleteI'll be busy with my mortgage processing job.
ReplyDeleteHowever, pictures and firsthand accounts would be welcome. My email is hoff_john@yahoo.com