"When we fight, we win"

[Hannah Bell]

Frances Louis, an activist with the group City Life/Vida Urbana, was among those who occupied a foreclosed townhouse in Boston in September 2009 with the intention of not leaving.

As part of a campaign by the Boston housing justice organization City Life/Vida Urbana, they changed the locks, moved in and hung a banner from the top window that read "Organize Community Control/Unite People, Yes We Can!" Frances and her family had recently been evicted from their own home nearly a year earlier and decided to occupy an empty property and demand the right to live there.

In February 2010, Louis and her family scored another victory when they bought the property that they had occupied for six months. They did this through Boston Community Capital, a non-profit community bank that buys foreclosed property from banks and re-sells the property to building occupants at a reduced principle and at a real market value.

The occupation was part of a larger campaign in which City Life/Vida Urbana is attempting to prevent evictions through blockades and protests while fighting to convert empty foreclosed homes into affordable permanent housing, as Frances Louis told SocialistWorker.org's Amirah Goldberg.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/04/02/when-we-fight-we-win

[bobbolink]

1. "at a reduced principle and at a real market value." WHAT???

That's not proper capitalism!

Are they trying to kill of speculators or sumfin?

[Yuugal]

2. K&R