SAFE: Join the Resistance

Join the Resistance

By Joshua Farris

The system is so crazy that people who want to pay to stay in their homes are displaced by banks that took billions in bail-outs from the tax payers. Aren’t people too big to fail? Forget about the big question of when our bail-out is coming. Just leave us in peace and let us pay to stay in our homes. No, won’t even do that… Well, don’t move-out!

This is the mad nightmare which people fighting the banks are dealing. People who work hard and are vital to their communities cannot even give money to the banks to live in their homes. The strange reality of this hit me like a ton of sheetrock when I, and other people, helped Jeremy reclaim his property that Wells Fargo’s lawyers were holding hostage for weeks after their second phony eviction. SAFE found Jeremy’s South Park home unsafe after Jeremy’s first phony eviction and we moved him back in.

Then the Seattle Police Department was brought in to evict Jeremy a second time. The cops’ idea is that there was a court order and the eviction had already been carried out (period). The Sheriff’s job is done. Jeremy’s home now belongs to some bank and the bank leaves the house to sit, rot, blight, and possibly be burned down by junkies (as is their right). What a great solution! We with SAFE just thought it would be nice if the bank would take Jeremy’s generous offers to pay to stay in his home, but nope—the bank’s solution for Jeremy’s household, his block, and neighborhood is better? I don’t think so.

Jeremy could always sue the banksters later for their fraud and theft of his home, but for now, he will have to reside somewhere else while his home falls apart and becomes an eyesore-haven for rodents and decay. How is this fair to South Park, Seattle, or any of the citizens in the country being displaced? We in this city alone lose about 250 households to the foreclosure grift every month. Imagine how big this would be in the news if 250 houses in Seattle burned down every month! It would be international news and everyone would be asking what sort of crazy people would allow 250 homes to burn down every month in our city.

Not all houses lost to foreclosure are left empty, but it is a safe estimate that there are over 3000 empty, bank-owned houses just sitting here in Seattle (many that might as well have burned down). There are now just a few hundred less homeless people sleeping in the streets of the city every night than there are vacant houses. We are doing a terrible job of allocating resources if houses were actually built for people to live in them.

What will happen to Jeremy’s home as it sits vacant and swallowed up by blackberry bushes, leaks, critters, and neglect? Jeremy’s neighbor said she would let SAFE post a large billboard in her front yard that states “If you buy this (Jeremy’s) land you’ve bought a protest”. Jeremy will continue to demand his home back. The bank offered him ten thousand dollars to walk away. He refused it. This is not about his house and money. This is about his home, the ten million households in the US already lost to foreclosure, and the next ten million homes that are to be taken by Wall Street’s financial terrorists. For Jeremy Griffin, this is about building a movement.
Moving Forward – Standing Beyond Eviction

The bank’s lawyers at the RCO/NTS – foreclosure mill in Bellevue are now paying for a wireless surveillance system to monitor Jeremy’s home at all times to prevent him from living in it. They further paid workers to barricade his home from the inside-out. They even stole a drill motor and some of his drill bits to do this. They used pieces of his bed frame to block doors and further sealed doors by sinking four-inch screws into the door frames. Who in their right mind would want to live here now? Jeremy, for one, still would – even though he’s pretty upset about all the damage the goons did to his house.

This financial system’s reign of terror would be over tomorrow if only a slightly larger portion of the population followed the lead of good people like Jeremy and others across the nation standing for justice and a sane future for us all. The simple truth is that we all do better when we all do better. Thanks, to brave people such as Jeremy, all the organizations of people working to build a more just world for all, and Nickelsville—the ecovillage of houseless people in Seattle suffering displacement tonight. We win when we fight back because we’re building a movement and beating the most powerful corporations on the planet. So don’t move-out – Join the Resistance!
Jeremy’s fight and others’ continues as SAFE grows and now demands the City government view our fights with the banks as civil land disputes. The SPD should not be involved and used to throw people out of their homes. Do they represent the people or the banks?

WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED