Police Evict Homesteaders
in Heavily Armored Raid

NYC, May 30, 1995

The residents barricaded the street with an overturned car and dumpsters, etc. to slow down the impending assault. An armored personnel carrier cleared a path for the SWAT teams, armed with automatic weapons, who broke through the many layers of obsticals and barriers to forcibly evict the squatters from their homes. The residents used non-violent resistance and civil disobedience tactics to hold their ground, but the police violently pried them from their strongholds while keeping cameras and the media far from view. Around 30 people were arrested, some hurt by the heavy handed tactics used by police to carry out their mission.

The residents have lived in the buildings for over 10 years, and include families and young children. They have been engaged in a court battle over ownership of the once abandoned city-owned buildings which the homesteaders had recovered and renovated over the years. The once drug-infested buildings were transformed from urban blight into a thriving part of the local community.

The city declared the buildings unsafe as a pretext for the raid, in order to circumvent legal proceedings pending in court as to wheather or not the squatters have a right to continue living in the buildings which were abandoned in the mid 70's, and were owned by New York City. There is a plan to develop "low income housing" on the site of the existing structures.

About a year ago the city decided they wanted these five buildings that squatters had worked to save from decay, transforming them into a thriving community. Judge Elliot Wilk of State Supreme Court ruled the city should not evict and ordered detailed hearings into the city's years of neglect of low income housing. To prevent the hearings from continuing the city used an unfair and unconstitutional law that allows them to ignore the rulings of a judge. The police showed up in force to enforce a vacate order issued by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to clear the buildings because of dubious reports of hazardous conditions. This was NOT a court order--only a declaration by someone in the HPD who wanted the squatters out to clear the way for a questionable plan to develop "low income housing" which would revert back to market rate housing in 10 years.

The judge is very upset with the city's desperate and provocative attempts to circumvent the law. Squatters say they only want the legal hearing that all citizens are guaranteed. The city's actions are a result of desperation because they were losing in court.

Please show your outrage over this unnecessary use of force, violation of human rights, and waste of money by calling the offices of

Tell the Mayor that the City's policy on this matter is unacceptable, and to that the use of police force to uphold city housing policy is a flagrant violation of the homesteaders' rights to due process and human rights.

The legal matter over ownership is presently before the courts and this police action was nothing more than strong-arm tactics to circumvent the due process that the homesteaders have a constitutional right to.

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