This past weekend in Detroit the coalition group Moratorium Now held a conference to discuss the fight against foreclosures in Michigan. 1 in 5 homes in Detroit are being foreclosed on and the numbers are not likely to improve anytime soon. There were around 50 people attending the conference on one of the coldest days so far this year. Some of the people who spoke were a retired UAW president, homeowners who were fighting foreclosures, welfare rights workers and two comrades from LMV.
An interesting and important point that was raised at the conference was by one of the welfare rights workers. It was after the UAW president had spoken and said that we were all in this together. The welfare right activist said we needed to be honest, we are not all in this together. Organized labor has gone on for far too long ignoring the needs of the unorganized and unemployed. She went on to say that in order for organized labor to win, they cannot continue on in this way and they must start to take up the demands of the larger workers movement. This is a fight about class, she said. This is a point that LMV had raised in the past at previous UAW conferences, advocating for the rank and file workers to take on demands important to their communities. In this way the movement could spread to the larger community and a common fight could be developed. Her points were well received by those in attendance and I was encouraged to hear people discussing how to build the larger working class movement.
We also heard from about 4 different people whose homes were being foreclosed on. The conference had time in the agenda for action proposals, some of which were to attend and try to disrupt the state of the state address, to have a protest outside Bank of America, and continuing to show our support directly in the neighborhoods where homes were being foreclosed on. After the conference, we caravaned to one sister's home who is fighting foreclosure and had a rally to show our support and speak out against what is happening in her community. It was very uplifting and several of the sister's neighbors came out to address the group thanking them for helping the sister and voicing their opposition to what foreclosures are doing to their community. We handed out leaflets to passerbys and held a picket in the street in front of the sister's home.
As the government continues to bail out wallstreet, mortgage lenders and companies like BOA and AIG, people are going to get more and more angry. Soon enough, most people will know of someone who is fighting against a foreclosure. We must continue to organize and grow the different campaigns like the Moratorium Now Coalition in Detroit and the Hands of Our Homes Committees that LMV is organizing. The conference in Detroit shows that already a strong network of militant fighters has started to emerge and as more and more stories like June Reyno in California begin to reach the people, more people will see a way to fight back and make concrete demands against foreclosures.
Allyson
4 comments:
If they don't fill those empty homes they are going to rot away like they are in places like Virginia, a complete waste of resources. All you would need is a small generator for each house, or a large one for several. You could move into a house for a down payment of one generator. Anyone know about squatter's rights?
I don't know much but I remember that this became quite an issue in Britain in the 60's with people occupying places and they eventually passed a squatter's rights law I think.
Check out Ken Loach's film, Riff Raff, its about a group of squatters, pretty funny
Squatting can be an effective way of doing direct action . Not too hard to do but hard to hold once taken.Ideally if supported by trade unionists especially skilled trades who are willing to go in to make the squat safe and liveable and there is a huge amount of support to the squatters etc including the ability to move in again once the police have removed people.
OCAP has used a USE IT OR LOSE IT campaign in the past ,and was successful in holding a squat for about 3 months . It can be a way though of drawing attention to the issue such as empty homes and buildings as you say rotting away while people freeze on the street and are kicked out of their homes.
Takes a big mobilization and support that can be sustained over a long period of time.
We spoke with squatters in Venezuala a few weeks ago and once again a different place and different circumstances but they have a huge squatters movement and manage to hold their occupations.
Unfortunately a few activists have been killed in the process but they keep it up.
Squatting is a great idea and one that did come up at the meeting. With the statistics what they are and the unknown cloud hanging over auto, the impact this could have on Detroit is devastating. Detroit already looks like a ghost town. I was stroke by one of the comments from someone at the meeting who said it used to be that an autoworker at GM was the highest paid worker in the world.
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