by Charles Legere
Homes Not Jails is an organization that works both publicly and secretly to obtain housing for the homeless, partly by taking over abandoned, disused, and vacated buildings. People who can’t afford housing sleep on the steps of vacant buildings that could be places for them to stay, but these buildings remain empty for the sake of profit. Homes Not Jails works to oppose this, because housing is a human right.
In late 1987, landlord Richard Imhoff claimed that he was planning improvements on a forty-unit apartment building at the corner of Taylor and Ellis Streets in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Maintenance of 250 Taylor had declined and tenants had complained about the disrepair, and as tenants left, their apartments stayed empty. By early 1988 Imhoff had evicted all the remaining tenants, and, because the building was rent-controlled many of the evicted tenants were unable to pay higher rents and became homeless, while 250 Taylor remained vacant.
In 1992, almost five years later, it was still vacant when, after giving Imhoff numerous opportunities to justify the evictions, the San Francisco Rent Board questioned Imhoff’s "candor and credibility" and said that the evictions were a "landlord strategy." Imhoff wanted the rent-control removed, and didn’t plan repairs. The Rent Board recommended that Imhoff be held accountable to the District Attorney.
Soon afterwards, Homes Not Jails had its first public takeover, at 250 Taylor Street. On Christmas Day in 1992 they again occupied the building, asking that Imhoff be prosecuted as the Rent Board had recommended. Each time that Homes Not Jails occupied 250 Taylor, trespassing charges had been dropped, but after a takeover on Thanksgiving Day in 1993, District Attorney Arlo Smith prosecuted the squatters. Since then, over $100,000 has been spent to prosecute four of the people who tried to take over 250 Taylor. Because Smith claims he doesn’t have the resources, there has been no investigation or prosecution of Richard Imhoff.
Homes Not Jails houses people who are homeless through direct action, such as:- Legislative Action-researching existing laws, such as the McKinney Act, federal legislation which provides for excess government property to be used for homeless housing; SB-120 in California, which provides for the use of vacant properties for homeless services; and an amendment to the New York state constitution which guarantees the right to shelter for all citizens; and advocating new legislation
- Sweat Equity Projects-working with non-profit housing developers to repair dilapidated buildings with the help of homeless people
- Covert Sqatting-making vacant buildings habitable and available for occupation, and providing resources for these squats
- Civil Disobedience-nonviolent public protests and marches, and visible public takeovers in which members of Homes Not Jails are prepared to be arrested
In early 1997, Homes Not Jails took over the Alexandria Hotel in Boston’s South End, a five-story, 22,500 square foot structure that is more than a century old, once a boardinghouse for wealthy bachelors. It has been vacant for more than twenty years. After a fire in 1993 the city declared it unsound, diverted traffic around its Massachusetts Avenue block, and ordered the owner, Russell Britt, to renovate it. He did not, local businesses complained about the street closing, and Britt was jailed briefly for his noncompliance. It is now owned by Macedonia Realty Trust, who promised to repair it three years ago.
Members of Homes Not Jails cut the locks on the Alexandria Hotel in the morning of January 25 and replaced them with their own. Demonstrators rallied at Copley Squre and marched to the South End. They arrived at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Washington Street around one in the afternoon, and members of Homes Not Jails entered the building. The occupiers unboarded a third-story window and hung a banner out that said "Housing Is A Human Right." Police arrived soon afterwards. The occupiers smuggled food and water by lowering a wire from the window until a police commander tied the wire to one of the building’s columns. Around quarter of six that day, Boston police entered the building, removed the seven remaining occupiers, and charged them with breaking and entering and trespassing, charges that would later be dropped.
There are 22,345 residential units empty in Boston, and according to the Boston Emergency Shelter Commission there are 6,000 homeless people. There is more than enough housing for the homeless. But rents in Boston increased by 12% in 1996 and similar numbers are expected for 1997 because of scaled back rent regulation, forcing some people to become homeless.
The federal government will spend $26.8 billion this year on incarceration, and the state of Massachusetts will spend $1.2 billion, more than three times the combined expenditures for housing assistance, daycare, and elderly services. Massachusetts spending on law enforcement has almost doubled since 1988, while funding for emergency shelters has been cut by 44% in the last two years.Homes Not Jails was founded under the basic principle that human needs should come before profit and greed. As an organization, we believe that we do not need to tolerate the mean-spirited policies that keep poor people hungry, homeless, and desperate. Inspired by our belief in the resources of the individual, the strength of the community, and the power of mutual aid, we offer an alternative to the current housing problem here in Boston-we will take what we need.Homes Not Jails isn’t about stealing, but taking what is being thrown away, because there is enough for all. Homes Not Jails is founded on principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience. In the United States, the governmental and popular solution is to jail people, treat symptoms of a socio-economically divided and inbalanced elite-accomodating society, a materialistic, consumptive, and violent society, instead of examining the causes. Across the nation and internationally, working without any capitol source, undermining the profiteering excesses of wasteful materialist culture based on capital, Homes Not Jails is taking what is being thrown away and giving it to people.