US Squatting report: Rust Belt Ruckus

[Gerrard Winstanley]

Rust Belt Ruckus: Inhabiting Industrial Collapse
by Chimney Swift
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/03/22/18381382.php
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2007/03/22/640_front.jpg

Thursday Mar 22nd, 2007

Staring off of my porch toward the river I see dozens of buildings: 
dilapidated, sinking into the river, being demolished, and wasting 
away. I scan the horizon, and through the blizzard I see a huge city, 
a once bustling metropolis, now eerily silent. I look down my street, 
and on either side are vacancies; some in bad shape but the majority 
are inhabitable. I stand on the porch of the biggest one I could find 
and smile, and then I go back inside and stoke the fire. Life is good 
to me, and I feel invincible. There is an old Earth First! slogan that 
comes to mind: "visualize industrial collapse." Not only can I 
visualize it by looking out the window, but I am living here—right 
smack dab in the midst of it—like a king.

The Great Lakes region is an economic phenomenon. In its heyday, the 
Rust Belt's economic activity formed a significant sector of the 
American economy including manufacturing and the automobile industry. 
In 1900, Buffalo rivaled New York City as one of the country's most 
populous cities. By the 1920s, with the steel industry at its peak and 
the Erie Canal opening up the Great Lakes to trade, Buffalo was 
bursting at the seams. 

But when the Great Depression set in, the steel industry took a dive, 
setting the stage for the economic growth of other Great Lakes cities 
such as Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwaukee. Buffalo's economy slowed 
and slowed as the bulk of industrial jobs disappeared to South America 
and Canada. 

The population has been in steady decline since the 1950s. The 
infrastructure is in place for the functioning of a major city but it 
is so spread out and under-funded that this once `all American city' 
is now the ideal reeding ground for squatters. Everything is abandoned 
everything is falling apart—and we are dancing in the ruins and making 
out like bandits. 

There is a serious housing crisis here in Buffalo. PUSH (People United 
for Sustainable Housing) has estimated that there are 100,000 
abandoned houses and 20,000 awaiting demolition. According to the 
Buffalo News, there is an overwhelming 40 percent vacancy stretching 
out to the suburbs where a `plague of vacancies' is sickening an 
already hurting economy. Many of them are in limbo due to utilities 
lines and mortgages, and tens of thousands of houses are held as 
assets by private creditors such as our very own ex-governor George 
Pataki. In parts of our neighborhood, there are two or three un-
maintained houses on every block. In fact, in 2003 the city issued a 
state of financial emergency and created the Buffalo Fiscal Stability 
Authority to handle the collapsing economy. 

Taking What's Ours, and the City Conceding 

A group of anarcho-punks had been looking at the mansion for some 
time. In early summer, a local punk house was evicted while we had 
access to a moving truck for free, so we piled ouches, furniture, 
personal possessions, and tools into it and parked in front of the 
house at noon on a weekend. After prying all the boards off the 
windows, attaching a shut off valve to the water main in the basement, 
and beginning initial cleaning and sanitizing, we began living in the 
house full time. 

A few months later, we received a letter from the city addressed to 
the former owners about housing code violations. We had just met the 
assessor and told him about our situation; he seemed supportive and 
even assessed the house at the lowest possible level to "give us a tax 
break"—or because it was a dilapidated heap of shambles. An inspector 
came by and listed many of our exterior violations including gutters, 
lead paints, siding and roof corrosion, and broken windows. We had 
already repaired a few of these by then and decided to go to court in 
lieu of the previous owners. There we were: four rag-tag kids wearing 
thrift store sports coats standing in front of the judge. 

We explained that we had begun living in the house and fixing the 
violations. The judge was interested in this because the courts were 
having trouble demolishing the house as it was in limbo, and since it 
was an eyesore and community problem, he wanted us to fix it up. In 
fact, we cut a lot of red tape by bringing ourselves to court and 
assuming the role of owner-occupant, which gave the judge and 
prosecutor a few ideas. Being that there are so many vacancies in 
limbo and the city can't keep up, they were considering using our 
house, among others, as a model for rewriting housing court law. This 
blew our minds. He said that he would not prosecute us for the major 
violations and would work on getting us the deed through a process 
called receivership. They needed us! 

We have been here for almost two years, and if we can make the minimum 
of ten then we can claim Adverse Possession. We've been to court four 
times. We pay our taxes and handle our violations and are close with 
all of our neighbors, so I am not worried. I would say we have more 
security than most other families, and none of us have jobs! Our 
situation is amazing, but it is not case specific. These conditions 
exist all over the Rust Belt. 

Squatting in the 21st century is tricky. Here in the United States, 
without liberal occupancy laws like most places in Europe, squatting 
creates a dilemma. The security and stability that we as Americans are 
so used to vanishes once you sidestep the law. In other words, what is 
the point of squatting if only to work toward the inevitability of 
eviction? Why go out of your way to live in shambles, to rebuild 
everything only to lose it? This leaves a bad taste in many mouths. 

However, the way one traditionally achieves security is by 
relinquishing all power to authority and living by its rules, enduring 
its tribulations. This is not a safe or secure way to live at all. 

The safety in having a home is rooted in the idea of permanence, but 
many of my friends go from lease agreement to lease agreement every 6 
months; rent a room here or there out of financial necessity; endure 
the inconvenience of sharing space with strangers. The modern living 
situation is actually very temporary. 

Meanwhile, we have been in our squatted mansion longer than many of 
our rent-paying neighbors. We have lived here longer than many people 
usually live in an apartment. We put a lot of time into this place and 
we could lose it, but we are fundamentally less vulnerable than 
tenants. We deal with the courts directly only regarding housing 
violations and—best of all—we don't pay rent to a landlord. 

Squatting makes the personal political by resisting the privatization 
of space. If loitering is a threat to property then trespassing is a 
war on it. And squatting is our victory over it, however temporary 
this autonomous zone will be in the end. In fact, squatting has 
existed much longer than the idea of property itself. 

The world unfurled itself to us like the petals of a rose. This is not 
to say that it can't happen elsewhere, but from personal experience, 
we have had little to no problems squatting here and have even been 
encouraged by neighbors and the state to turn a ransacked hovel into 
the house of our dreams. 

>From Fault Lines #20
The Birdhouse 
by Chimney Swift Thursday Mar 22nd, 2007 11:57 AM 


see image here
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2007/03/22/640_front.jpg

The Birdhouse sits in a forgotten neighborhood in Buffalo, New York