“Our tax money paid for the bank bailouts,” says Mo Karn, a member of the collective anarchist pro-people brain trust behind Squat2Own. “People should get these buildings — they shouldn’t sit empty so a bank can try to make a profit.”

[...]

Karn has the experience. She and her fellow anarchists made headlines in February when they moved into an abandoned house in the city’s North Side, spending thousands of dollars in renovations before city officials booted them out.

Specifically, which law is unjust in this scenario?

One of the houses that they have on their list as being foreclosed on, is not, and he is just trying to sell the house.

So if you know anyone that is on their list. They can go down to police percient and fill out a No Trespressing form. And if the police see anyone proptery at anytime that not suppose to be there. The police can arrest them.

Hey, most of us have to pay rent or a mortgage. If those young folks are serious, which I doubt, they need to just go live with their parents if they think they don’t need to pay rent.

It health and safey issue. Many times when vacant house catch fire it is cause of squatters. Sometimes those fire spread to the nieghbors house.

This is not civil disobedience this is theft. In our area we will be watching those vacant houses for any squatters.

Most of the new homeless are previous homeowners and professionals who simply happened to be less lucky than the rest of us when the recession hit. Gaining tenants like these -who will improve and maintain foreclosed properties- is clearly a better option than the alternative: dereliction, condemnation, and the vagrants, vandals, and gangs that trash vacant properties and/or turn them into drug dens.

Civil disobedience is one of the oldest and most basic fundaments of social reform, in the U.S. especially. In a city with so many empty homes and so many people in real need of shelter, the logical answer can only win out with an empowered and informed populace.

These stinking commies should move to North Korea or the PRC. Get the hell out of the US, please.

If I see any of their signs over here in Battery Park I will take them. I they are setting it up as a joke but they are telling people how to squat.

This group needs to clean up their own house. They have junk piled up on their front porch. This nieghborhood has no use for them.

I actually agree that the city should be MUCH more agressive in going after properties are are neglected / abandoned and seizing / selling them as necessary to folks who will actually move in and take care of the proerties.

However, encouraging SQUATTERS to move in is a whole lot of bogus. I wonder if any of the group members live in the neighborhoods where they are encouraging squatting.

There are numerous cases nation wide where squatters get injured on a property then sue the landlord.