The Borgos article was certainly an eye opener. I had been vaguely aware of the idea of squatters, mostly in relation to the old West, or to homeless people taking up residence in unfinished houses in my neighborhood (it was common for these projects to go on start-stop over several years). Suffice to say, my opinion of squatting was not a predominantly positive one. But with more thought, why isn’t it? After all, at this point in the year, I’m well aware of the fact that vacant homes greatly outnumber those without a place to live. Borgos’ article presents the story, following a brief history of squatting, of the ACORN squatting campaign in the 1980s. The idea was radical to me – squatting as form of protest – but he immediately lends legitimacy by noting that this is common practice in Europe. As a method for procuring affordable housing for low-income residents of the community, this proved to be a helpful method. Just as importantly, it was a dramatic method that drew attention to the issue and shattered the myth that Americans were well housed. Many of these people had previously been crammed into tight living spaces with large families to make rent or were left to live in deeply unsafe housing projects. This method gained traction in various cities and even drew occasional (and very limited) support from local governments. The ultimate goal of these squatting campaigns was to get the squatters titles to the houses they were fixing. Many eventually did. Although their actions were illegal, they gained support from neighbors, the public at large, and occasionally elected officials. They pried off barricades to get to their new homes in defiance of the law, and then worked themselves to make the home liveable. This method, however, would seem most effective when pertaining to homes still in good conditions. The potential to work as a large scale program would be somewhat hampered by the possibility that for more run-down abandoned homes, it could become too reliant on self-help housing.

Schuman comes out immediately to say that it is mortal sin in America to speak against self-help methods, as we have always celebrated this individualist model in all areas. He mentions the very real merits of self help housing, which allow it to work on an individual scale. However, its inability to work as a program stems from many of these same factors. While it keeps labor costs minimal for and individual  project, as it relies on individuals and there neighbors to labor for cheap/free, this also drives down wages in the construction field. If the gap between cost and income is the source of the problem, implementing self-help housing programmatically would seem likely to exacerbate the problem. It is also said that the construction skills gained would help these residents in the job market, but in reality the construction industry was not in the best shape and tended toward racial exclusivity. Self-help was intended to keep buildings from falling into the hands of speculators, but was not likely to salvage more than a few buildings in a given neighborhood. Self-help also reduces the demand on government to address the housing problem when these same people should be calling on the government to act responsibly in this area. While not programmatically applicable, self-help was certainly helpful on a small scale, and proved a good starting point for housing rights activists.

95% of post-recession growth went to the top 1%. And I’m not sure which problem is bigger here: that this happened or that it isn’t even a shocking statistic. When I read this, after about .5 seconds of indignation, I quickly devolved to “yeah, business as usual.” The Fields article makes this point early on. She also attacks the REO-to-rental economy that has developed. Investors and speculators are profiting by converting foreclosed homes into rental properties. People having to rent the homes they once owned, as foreclosure came to be seen less as a personal failure and more as a failure of the system, is a major issue “akin to sharecropping” as the article says,