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"REAL ESTATE AGENCY" INVITES PEOPLE TO SQUAT IN FORECLOSED HOUSES

Signs have been showing up on foreclosed properties around Richmond recently, advertising that the houses are available for free to anyone who needs a home. Though they look like ordinary real estate signs at first glance, they're actually the work of "Squat 2 Own Realty", a group of activists who are helping people take over vacant foreclosed houses without permission from the banks.

"The public has paid trillions of dollars to the banks to bail out bad mortgages. So we feel at this point the foreclosed homes are actually public property, and banks have no right to keep them empty." says Mo Karn, a Squat 2 Own activist. "If a working-class family needs a place to live, and they're willing to work to turn a vacant property into a home rather than an abandoned blight, why shouldn't they?"

With homelessness on the rise nationwide and local governments failing to address the overwhelming increase of vacant properties, Squat 2 Own Realty hopes to help ordinary people take the initiative to reclaim their communities from the banks and speculators responsible for the current financial crisis.

The activists advertise this so-called real estate agency on the web site www.squat2own.com, which includes detailed information on how to reclaim an abandoned house as well as a searchable database of foreclosed homes in the Richmond area.