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Occupy Homes, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, will protest in foreclosed and vacant properties in around 25 U.S. cities on Tuesday's "Day of Action," promoting what organizers call the "basic human right of housing."
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Along with Occupy Wall Street protesters, the movement will bring together affordable housing activists, tenant groups, homeless advocates and other civic groups, who will march on one of the most visible legacies of the economic crisis.
Despite recent modest gains in employment, the national housing markets remains bleak. Home prices have descended steadily downward throughout the year, according to the Case-Shiller Housing Index, while nearly a quarter of U.S. homes have underwater mortgages, according to CoreLogic.
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"I think it's a natural evolution," Max Rameau of Take Back the Land, one of the national organizers, told International Business Times.
Rameau has been advocating for community-controlled land since 2006, and his cause received a boost after the Occupy movement coalesced a few months ago. But with many groups being uprooted from public spaces, physically occupying troubled homes brings a continued, tangible presence of the movement, he said.
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"You can't organize except face to face," he said. "You can't do that through Twitter."
Throughout the country, local organizations will act in an orchestrated -- but diverse -- effort.
Chicago has thousands of vacant properties, and activists there will target three separate homes on Tuesday to refurbish and move families in.
"We're trying to show that these properties are having a detrimental impact on the community," said Willie J.R. Fleming of the Anti-Eviction Campaign. "What we're trying to do is give control of the land back to the community. We're not asking for human rights. we're enforcing our human rights."
Activists in East New York, Brooklyn, also plan to move a family back into a foreclosed home.
In Portland, Ore., protesters will hold a conference at the home of a couple, both of whom have cancer and are at risk of eviction. Later, it will visit the local sherrif's and county assessor's office and enrcourage police to stop enforcing evictions, said Taran Connelly of Unsettle Portland, one of the groups involved.
"People should have more to say than banks who played a roulette game," he said, adding that the group was working with three other properties that are facing eviction before the holidays.
In Madison, Wis., organizers will "liberate" a residence owned by Bank of America, said Monica Adams, a local spokeswoman for Take Back the Land. It will be the third property the group has targetted -- at previous properties, banks have sent police or installed full time security, said Adams.
“We need to fundamentally transform our relationship with land in this country,” she added.
