Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Squatter's rights?

I honestly don't know what to think about this. Well actually I do, but I really didn't expect to see it. A homeless activist in South Florida is “matching homeless people with people-less homes.” On the surface it sounds quite noble, but it's illegal.

Max Rameau delivers his sales pitch like a pro. "All tile floor!" he said during a recent showing. "And the living room, wow! It has great blinds."

But in nearly every other respect, he is unlike any real estate agent you've ever met. He is unshaven, drives a beat-up car and wears grungy cut-off sweat pants. He also breaks into the homes he shows. And his clients don't have a dime for a down payment.

Mr. Rameau is an activist who has been executing a bailout plan of his own around Miami's empty streets: He is helping homeless people illegally move into foreclosed homes.

Mr. Rameau isn't alone in this criminal enterprise. He and a group of other “activists” banded together to create a group called Take Back the Land.

"I think everyone deserves a home," said Mr. Rameau, adding that he takes no money from his work with the homeless. "Homeless people across the country are squatting in empty homes. The question is: Is this going to be done out of desperation or with direction?"

I'm not sure that that's the question. There are a few other questions that ought to be answered. Let's start with a simple one — isn't aiding and abetting a crime a crime itself? Isn't breaking and entering usually considered a crime? Isn't an organization that is formed to undertake criminal activity a criminal organization? Doesn't the RICO act apply? Well, in the last case the answer is probably “No” so we can strike that one, after all Mr. Rameau and his group don't take any money from their operation. Still I think the answers to the other questions are fairly easy.

“‘I think everyone deserves a home,’ said Mr. Rameau.”

What about the people that were living in those homes originally? The people that bought them? The people that made payments on them? The people foreclosed upon? The people kicked out by the title holder? Don't they deserve a home too?

Is it “social justice” when someone has made a good faith effort to purchase a home, made regular payments, and then as a result of an economic downturn is forced out of that home while someone else who will make no payments at all is moved in?

In early November, Mr. Rameau drove a woman and her 18-month-old daughter to a ranch home on a quiet street lined with swaying tropical foliage. Marie Nadine Pierre, 39, has been sleeping at a shelter with her toddler. She said she had been homeless off and on for a year, after losing various jobs and getting evicted from several apartments.

"My heart is heavy. I've lived in a lot of different shelters, a lot of bad situations," Miss Pierre said. "In my own home, I'm free. I'm a human being now."

What about the humanity of the people that were foreclosed upon and forced to move out of Miss Pierre's “home?” Are they free? Aren't they also human beings now forced to live in shelters or to find some other way to put a roof over their head?

I understand the plight of the homeless. Everyone want's a place to live and the opportunity to live in dignity. But, as Mr. Scrooge might (but didn't quite) say, Are there no shelters? no homeless camps? Miss Pierre didn't lack for shelter, she's been living in one. Now she's living in a home she entered illegally, and literally stole from its owners. The Associated Press would have us feel that the work of Mr. Rameau is somehow noble.

The article adds some additional information which lends support to this idea. It mentions that several localities have problems with large numbers of available homes that are sitting empty because of “overbuilding” and “speculation.” It mentions the high foreclosure rate — but neglects the plight of those foreclosed upon.  It mentions Miami's foreclosure prevention program. It mentions how other localities are dealing with the problem — homeless advocates in Cleveland working with  the city to match homeless people to empty homes legally, and how some property owners are paying the homeless to live in homes and watch over them as a security measure.

Mr. Rameau's work is not noble. It's illegal. The article even says so. Further, it's an infringement upon the property rights of others. Shouldn't it be up to the property owner to determine how that property is used? If property owners in Atlanta want to pay people to live in foreclosed homes as a security measure isn't that their right? If they instead want to sell homes to people with the means to afford them isn't that also their right?

Somebody owns the home that Miss Pierre is living in now, and it's not Miss Pierre. While she's living there, it's going to be awfully difficult to sell that house. And if the house does sell, she's going to be on the streets again. Will we see another article from the Associated Press then about her being kicked out of her home?

It's good to see that someone cares about the homeless. It's not so good when people end up stealing a home from its rightful owner. And it's not so good to praise someone that breaks the law and encourages that theft. That's not the way to fix a “broken” economy.