In December, Occupy Homes MN in coordination with Socialist Alternative and other community organizations launched the Foreclosure and Eviction Free Zone. The FEFZ encompasses the Powderhorn Park and Central neighborhoods, among the communities most ravaged by the foreclosure crisis.
Since 2007, 835 families have been foreclosed on in these neighborhoods roughly three homes per block. The neighborhoods are almost exclusively working class, with a high density of black and Latino homeowners who are more likely to be victims of predatory lending and bear the brunt of the foreclosure crisis.
The FEFZ project is based on the perspective that entire communities will need to unite in struggle to solve the housing crisis. We urge homeowners facing foreclosure to pledge to stay in their homes and fight back while supporting others facing eviction. Together with families, neighbors, and allies, Occupy Homes is organizing our communities to stand together to pressure banks to renegotiate mortgages and to defy attempts by sheriffs and police to carry out evictions. We believe that if a majority of those facing foreclosure publicly resist, it will create a political crisis, forcing city and state politicians to intervene and force the banks into negotiation.
Occupy Homes activists started with a list of 200 foreclosed properties and systematically knocked on every door, appealing to each person to join the campaign. So far, 50 homeowners have expressed interest in further discussion and three of those, Gayle, Nafeesah, and Genet have declared publicly that they are refusing to move out of their homes. These three are all women of color, highlighting the fact that women and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by the housing crisis.
Occupy Homes activists are confident that more will join the campaign soon. Homeowners are knocking on their neighbors doors, appealing for others to stand up with them. Local teachers, neighborhood associations, churches, and community groups are getting involved in struggle for housing justice. Occupy Homes MN hopes to bring together a powerful community-led coalition that can challenge the banks, city officials, and police.
There are three basic demands for the FEFZ:
- A Moratorium: All foreclosures must be halted until a just negotiation that keeps families in their homes is achieved.
- Principal Reduction: Homeowners in the two FEFZ neighborhoods have more than $52 million in negative equity which is owed to Wall Street investors and the big banks. This unjust debt should be forgiven by reducing the principal of all mortgages to todays market value.
- Stop Evictions: Police and other public resources should not be used to carry out evictions or any other dirty business for the big banks.
These changes will not materialize out of thin air; working people will have to fight for them. The Foreclosure and Eviction Free Zone is a prototype of the kind of vehicle that will be necessary to resolve the fundamental problems of the housing crisis. As long as the right to shelter is welded to a system designed to maximize profits, families will continue to fall prey to the shark-infested waters of finance capitalism.