Affordable Housing Institute : US

If you aren’t using it and I want it, I can take it, right?  So, according to The Boston Globe, says Max Rameau:

 

MIAMI – Max Rameau delivers his sales pitch like a pro. “All tile floor!” he says. “And the living room, wow! It has great blinds.”

 

Marie Nadine Pierre left homeless shelters behind and moved into a foreclosed house in Miami.

 

But he is unlike any real estate agent you’ve met. He is unshaven, drives a beat-up car, and wears grungy cut-off sweat pants. He also breaks into the homes he shows.

 

Breaking and entering, whose legal name is ‘burglary’.  In Massachusetts that can get you twenty years.

 

Do not collect $200 rent checks

 

And his clients don’t have a dime.

 

The thing is, clandestine occupancy is never guaranteed to be benign.  A house illegally occupied can be used for all manner of illegal activity: growing marijuana, refining drugs, running prostitutes, harboring illegal immigrants, vandalism, and other houses of crime.  To say nothing of damaging and using someone else’s property.

 

Rameau has been executing a bailout plan of his own around Miami: He is helping homeless people illegally move into foreclosed homes.

 

“We’re matching homeless people with people-less homes,” he said with a grin.

 

Grin your way to jail, sir.

 

If you believe in your principles, that is

 

Rameau and like-minded advocates [How many not stated – Ed.]formed Take Back the Land, which also helps the new “tenants” with furniture, cleaning supplies, and yard upkeep. So far, he has moved six families into foreclosed homes and has nine on a waiting list.

 

“I think everyone deserves a home,” said Rameau, who said he takes no money.

 

Mr. Rameau has a history of seizing other people’s property when times are good as well as when they are bad:

 

In response to one of the worse [sic] epidemics of gentrification and low income housing in the United States, a small group of activists in South Florida lawfully seized control over public land, and started a desperately over due movement.

 

‘Lawfully seized’?  Even making allowance for normal self-justification, it’s quite a stretch to wave away contrary laws.

 

Buh-bye, laws

 

In the wake of public housing vacancies, corrupt city officials and flawed federal programs, a community found the unrelenting courage to fight back.  

 

On October 23, 2006, members of Take Back The Land reclaimed publicly owned land in the Liberty City section of Miami, creating the self governed shantytown of Umoja Village.

 

Self-governed?

 

Using minimal resources such as discarded plywood, packing palettes, and tin roofs, a collective group of activists, Umoja residents, and community supporters built temporary housing units for 53 displaced residents.

 

In spite of police arrests, court battles, interpersonal conflicts, and the devastating fire which would reduce the village to ashes, the Umoja clan stood strong with unbridled spirits, proving the power of determination and perseverance.

 

If I have this right, they failed entirely, but because they had ‘unbridled spirits’ they ’stood strong’?  In any case, Mr. Rameau is unrepentant:

 

He was looking for a sign first

 

“Homeless people across the country are squatting in empty homes.”

 

Are they, Mr. Rameau?

 

“The question is: Is this going to be done out of desperation or with direction?”

 

Direction from whom?

 

Like other cities, Miami is trying to ease the problem. Officials launched a foreclosure-prevention program, with loans of up to $7,500 per household. The city also passed an ordinance requiring owners of empty homes to register the properties so police can monitor them.

 

Evidently the police have a narrow-minded view of Mr. Rameu in his quest.

 

Knight errant on night errand?

 

In early November, Rameau drove a woman and her 18-month old daughter to a ranch home on a quiet street.  

 

Accompanied by a sympathetic reporter, evidently.

 

Marie Nadine Pierre, 39, had been sleeping at a shelter.

 

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

 

I feel sympathy for Ms. Pierre and her baby.

 

Rameau chose the house for Pierre, in part, because he knew its history. A man had bought the home in 2006 for $430,000, then rented it to Rameau’s friends, who were evicted because the homeowner stopped paying his mortgage and the property went into foreclosure.

 

More untangling required.  As I’ve previously posted, when the lender forecloses on a rented house, that normally cancels a residential lease.

 

In Parts is Parts, I posted about a complex thirteen-tranche securitization created by Goldman Sachs, and the obstacles that raises for loan modification. 

 

So who decided to evict Matos? The paperwork said Deutsche Bank, which is listed in county records as the formal owner of the building after the landlord defaulted in May. But a spokesman for Deutsche Bank said that was a technicality; the company was simply acting on behalf of the trust, which has terms that dictate what the bank must do in the event of foreclosure.

 

In short, Mr. Matos is being evicted by a zombie …

 

I’m just here for the rent

 

… or a robot.

 

A robot may not evict a human being, or through inaction,

Allow that human being to be evicted?

 

The instructions are written in the documents, and the intermediated value chain operates in its pre-programmed way, and Mr. Matos gets ground up.

 

Evidently that happened to Mr. Rameau’s friends.  The loan servicer followed the documents and, as part of the foreclosure, secured ‘vacant possession.’   Undoubtedly Mr. Rameau was upset, so he thought of a simple revenge.  If the bank would evict his rent-paying friend, he would move in a rent-free stranger.

 

A squatter’s manifesto

 

Rameau, a computer consultant, said he’s doing the owner a favor.  

 

Then perhaps he should have contacted them, or asked their permission.

 

Before Pierre moved in, someone stole the air conditioning unit. “Within a couple of months, this place would be stripped and drug dealers would be living here,” he said.

 

He said he is not afraid of arrest.

 

They always say that.

 

“There’s a real need here, and there’s a disconnect between the need and the law,” he said.

 

City spokeswoman Kelly Penton said officials did not know Rameau was moving the homeless into empty buildings – but “There are no actions on the city’s part to stop this.”

 

There will be now, I’m sure.

 

“It is important to note that if people trespass into private property, it is up to the property owner to take action.”

 

Actually, the property owner calls the sheriff.  That’s how the system works.

 

I’m here to clean up this occupancy

 

Pierre could be charged with trespassing or breaking and entering.  Rameau assured her he has lawyers who will represent her for free.

 

She’ll need them.  So will Mr. Rameau.

 

I feel sympathy for Ms. Pierre and her baby, who’s already been unpleasantly surprised. 

 

Two weeks after Pierre moved in, she came home to find the locks had been changed. Her food, clothes, and family photos were gone.

 

Thus, despite the photo of Ms. Pierre and her child, moving out of the shelter has divested her of most of her worldly possession.  That’s some favor you have done, Mr. Rameau.

 

But late last month, with Rameau’s help, she got back in.

 

Again illegally.

 

So far, the police have not gotten involved. 

 

They will.

 

Yes, we’re arresting the clown now

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