Organizers Defend Occupation of ENY Foreclosure

Over the weekend the Post reported that the attention-grabbing Occupy Wall Street takeover of a vacant house in foreclosure in East New York was little more that a publicity stunt that hadn’t actually succeeded in providing housing to people in need of it, and yesterday the people behind the occupation issued a series of statements responding to the story’s claims in an effort to debunk some of them. OWS organizers say that Wise Ahadzi, the homeowner who abandoned the house a couple years ago after foreclosure proceedings began, hadn’t told them that he was intent on reclaiming his property, as the Post reported: “According to statements Mr. Ahadzi made to the New York Post yesterday, he is apparently now interested in reclaiming his home. Given that, Alfredo Carrasquillo and members of Occupy Wall Street will support Mr. Ahadzi’s efforts, so that neither his family or Alfredo’s is homeless, and so that the house at 702 Vermont does not sit vacant.” Meanwhile, Alfredo Carrasquillo, the community organizer who is supposed to be moving into the East New York house with his family, responded to the story’s allegations that it didn’t appear like he’d moved into the property and it was only being lived in by Occupy Wall Street protesters: “On December 6, I moved into a vacant, Bank of America-foreclosed property with the support of neighbors on Vermont St. because my family — victims of Michael Bloomberg’s housing policies and the big banks’ callous disregard for people — had been homeless for years. The support I received from the community was overwhelming, in part because they have also been victims of those same policies. …I invited members of Occupy Wall Street to inhabit the house with me, until it was safe for my family to move in, as a defense against the mayor’s policy of using the police department to defend property over people.”
Owner of OWS Foreclosure in ENY Wants His House Back [Brownstoner]
Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh