Swat The Madison Squatters
I can see the face of Yuri from “Dr. Zhivago” when he enters the huge house in Moscow to see it filled with revolutionaries. Squatters have taken over his house except for one room. They remind him that he was living in a fine house while they lived in huts. That image, rightly or not, is the one that keeps coming to mind over and over as reports of Madison’s latest absurdity is told by the media.
I have not been amused at the audacity of a local movement to allow squatters to take up residence in a home that is going through a foreclosure process. While I have a big old liberal heart for probably too many causes and issues, (homelessness being one of them) there is just no way I can wrap my head around the absurdity of what is playing out on Madison’s west side. When I see the rabble-rousers who have commandeered a home on Tempe Drive all I can think of is where will this lead if not stopped?
In a nutshell here is the story.
The homeless rights advocacy group helped a single mom and her two small kids move into a west side duplex vacated in a foreclosure action and staged a press conference Monday challenging the loan-holder to deed the property to a local affordable housing provider.
The press conference that was held on the driveway of the seized property by Operation Welcome Home was one of the most outrageous PR stunts I have perhaps ever seen. The legal residents of this neighborhood have every reason to be pissed off, and are rightly demanding that this nonsense be stopped at once.
“We feel that it’s unjust and immoral that there’s homeless people on one side of the street and empty buildings on the other side of the street,” said Z! Haukeness, another group organizer.
Really?
Does that mean then, if one takes this absurdity to the next level, (and absurdity always grows) that the graduate student who lives a few blocks away from me, and travels to Africa for 9 months, but pays his rent even though the place is empty, might find squatters in his bed when he makes it back to the Isthmus? Does that mean that the couple that goes on a sabbatical but wishes not to have a ’house-sitter’ are at risk of Operation Welcome Home moving a single mom into the building and setting up residence?
If you laugh at my questions, consider the fact that no one would have ever dreamed that this original problem would have started on Tempe Drive. So do not laugh too much at what I suggest.
When James and I started looking for a house about four years ago we looked for what we could afford. What a concept! We never dreamed that all we needed to do was look for a foreclosed property with a broken door, move my book shelves in, and set up shop. It should be noted that the woman who moved into the Tempe Drive home had been living with her parents in what was described as a limited space. Well, I too lived for a time in a very small efficiency apartment, but worked my way to a larger place. We all have been in situations that were not the best, but few of us take illegal actions to improve our lot in life.
There will surely be some who think this movement is just the greatest idea to get back at bankers, or fat-cats. They are the same ones that wear organic hemp underwear and deplore deodorants.
For the rest of us there is only one solution to this matter.
Swat the squatters out! And there must be criminal charges to make sure a message is sent to quell others who might want to move into a ‘vacant’ property.
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This is absurd, and NOT arresting these people is a crime in itself!
Give this selfish woman 3 hots and a cot, and put her kids in an orphanage where they have a shot at a good, solid upbringing by someone with morals. She is not homeless, and she does not even represent homelessness. She does nothing for the cause except escalate it to the level of illegality.
If you take a forclosed house and give it to someone who has no home, where is the incentive to pay bills??????? We could all go out and buy a home, never make a payment, and just play ring around the rosie never sleeping anywhere for more than a couple weeks, and never making a payment.
A person who is perpetually homeless needs a hospital or some sort of help that a breaking-and-entering conviction only exacerbates. A person who is temporarily homeless needs a shelter that will help them get back on their feet, not a house to break into and spend their time watching over their back for the cops!
If we want to bring attention to local homelessness, remove the African/Ethiopian pleading commercials showing wide-eyed kids with mud rubbed on their faces begging for your money with local homeless advocacy groups commerials with honest pleas for help, both financially and physically. I would get behind that 100%, but I have nothing but HATE for fools with $200 hairdos, big screen tv’s, and leather couches that break the law for the 15 minutes of fame.
Thank God this was not allowed to go on for very long, and that the second attempt was apparently cut off at the pass! If one of these families ever appears in my house while I am away, I will likely be calling the police to collect the corpses after they take notes about the break-in and how scared I was for my life! Someone who breaks into your house while you are gone has nothing but ill intent for your well-being, and a felony break-in conviction would be the best possible outcome to expect. The alternatives from the breaker’s perspective are much more dire, but at least they would not have to worry about life “on the street” any more.
Wake up and smell the coffey! If you need help ask for it from a legitimate source and pray for compassion. If you use the system, get the heck out of my face and pull yourself up by your bootstraps like my family had to. Everyone hits a rough patch, and it is unfortunate, but a fact of life. No one owes anyone anything unless you sign a contract to fulfill (LIKE A MORTGAGE). I know the banks are the bad guys right now, but NONE of them FORCED any of their customers to sign the loan papers! They offered crappy product to people who could not afford them, BUT the loan recipients did recieve a loan that they should have known full well they could not afford.
My first house was bought for 2/3 what the bank told me I could borrow. It was a struggle to make the payments, and I was glad on many occasions I did not listen to the loan agent that told me I should look for more house. By the time we got to the point where that bigger home was needed and strongly desired, guess what – we could afford to sell the one we had at a healthy profit and buy the house we needed. We moved into that second one with 50% equity, and survived a 2 1/2 month unemployment situation due to the fact that we had TRUE EQUITY to fall back on. My entire financial life was affected by that “time off”, but we weathered the storm because of a little fiscal responsibility and careful planning.
It shocks me to think about how close to homeless we could have been, but I am also proud of the fact that my planning saved the day. I understand the plight of those not as fortunate as I was was – I was very close to that place. However, illegal activity is not the answer, and going down that road is reprehensible!
This story brings focus to the unmet needs of the homeless population. However, simply breaking and entering and making yourself at home in vacant properties is not the answer—-in fact it will do nothing but exacerbate levels of disregard for trespassing laws, etc.
While not always the case, homelessness often goes hand in hand with drug/alcohol issues, untreated mental health issues as well as other unmet social and medical needs. These issues must be address—it’s not as simple as breaking and entering and finding a home to live in.
Squatting is not in any way the answer. In fact, I hope next time there is an immediate arrest for breaking and entering and not the pandering to the public relations efforts of this group that we witnessed in Madison media.