In California, housing justice advocates and Occupy Oakland squatters are learning their rights about living in abandoned houses to gain adverse possession. “One night a little more than a decade ago, Steve DeCaprio pulled his bike up to an abandoned house in Ghost Town, a poor neighborhood in West Oakland dotted with vacant lots. He cut through the rusty lock on the chain-link fence with bolt cutters, then pried open a plywood sheet that stood where the front door once had. Then he replaced the locks with his own. This is how DeCaprio, a longtime East Bay squatter and veteran of the punk and metal scenes, acquired his home.” From “Housing a Movement,” by Chris Smith, from California Northern. Reprinted in Utne Reader, September/October 2012, with artwork by Jim Kazanjian.

In California, housing justice advocates and Occupy Oakland squatters are learning their rights about living in abandoned houses to gain adverse possession.

“One night a little more than a decade ago, Steve DeCaprio pulled his bike up to an abandoned house in Ghost Town, a poor neighborhood in West Oakland dotted with vacant lots. He cut through the rusty lock on the chain-link fence with bolt cutters, then pried open a plywood sheet that stood where the front door once had. Then he replaced the locks with his own. This is how DeCaprio, a longtime East Bay squatter and veteran of the punk and metal scenes, acquired his home.”

From “Housing a Movement,” by Chris Smith, from California Northern.
Reprinted in Utne Reader, September/October 2012, with artwork by Jim Kazanjian.

Tags: occupy