On Monday, April 9th, about 60 community participants entered the house of a Raleigh, NC, family that has been illegally foreclosed on, and refused to leave as an act of civil disobedience.
The family has bravely chosen to fight eviction and foreclosure and is requesting community support. Evidence of robo-signing by the bank, which is a fraud, has been uncovered and the entire foreclosure process is under attorney review.
A coalition coordinating with Max Rameau of Take Back the Land and including; Mortgage Fraud NC, Occupy Raleigh, Save Our Homes and Occupy Greensboro are participated in yesterday’s public protest and home defense. The objectives of this action were: to demand that Nicole and her family be allowed to reclaim possession of their home; to call for a NATIONAL MORATORIUM on all foreclosures, evictions, and utility shut-offs; to demand that banks negotiate loan modifications that include principal reduction; to call for the creation of a community land trust.
Another 10 families in this predominantly African-American neighborhood are facing similarly illegal foreclosure and eviction. This foreclosure eviction protest is one of a growing movement across the country. Take Back the Land, the Occupy movement and others are partnering with homeowners to demand that housing be recognized as a human right. The banks that are foreclosing on the multitude of low-income families are also financing blowing the tops off of mountains, deforesting critical habitat and ecosystems so that they can expand the military and prison industrial complexes and dispossess more people around the world while consolidating power for the 1%.
Take Back the Land stands for the liberation of the commons and what Rameau calls a “three-dimensional struggle” for economic, social, and environmental justice. In the last year, successful eviction resistance has been used nationally from Los Angeles to Atlanta and Washington DC. This was the first use of civil disobedience in defense of foreclosed homes in North Carolina. Occupy groups in North Carolina have also been involved in anti coal actions recently. More on that later.