25 Low-Income

Homeownership
and the ACORN
Squatters Campaign
Seth Borgos

One organized consumer response to the h?using is

vacant houses and fixing them up. Thesquattmg campatgn orgamzed by ACORN m
over a dozen U.S. cities, modeled after an earlier grassroots action in Philadelphia, has
assisted hundreds of low-income families in acquiring low-cost housing. The approach
rests on the conviction that unoccupied housing (e.g., housing that landlords have
abandoned or city government has taken over because of property-tax delinquency)
should be returned to the community as quickly as possible, and that squatters can play
a major role in fixing up these dwellings to keep costs down. The desire for home-
ownership is seen as a key motivating force behind the strength of a squaners'
movement. Furthermore, squatting, as a tactic, demonstrates the principle that the
right to decent housing takes precedence over the rights of property; it has the potential
of forcing government to assume increased responsibility for /ow-income housing.

By official estimates, there are more than 20,000 abandoned houses in

Philadelphia. The densest concentration of these houses is in the neighbor-
hoods of North Philadelphia, flanking Broad Street for hundreds of blocks
from City Hall to the city line.
The characteristic housing form of North Philadelphia is the single-
family, brick row house, narrow, unadorned, and unpretentious. For de-
cades following their construction in the nineteenth century, these houses
and neighborhoods provided a stable and affordable environment to lower-
middle-class and working-class families. In the years following World War
II, this environment was violated. Houses were purchased by speculators
and subsequently houses were foreclosed on and left vacant;
houses were leaving gaps like missing teeth in formerly solid
blocks. Paradoxically, as the number of vacant houses mounted so did the
number of low- and moderate-income Philadelphians who safe and
affordable housing.
On _a bright cold Saturday in March 1982, 200 people gathered on the
m of Calvary Church at 29th Street and Lehigh Avenue in North
Philadelphia. After a round of speeches decrying the abandonment and
428
 Low-Income Homeowner.ship and the ACORN Campaign 429

neglect of_ their the demonstrators marched a few blocks

down leh1gh, chantmg "two-four-six-eight, we want houses we can't wait I"
a_nd "We're fi_red up, can't taken? more!" Then they swept' down a narro.w
street. With cameras, plamclothes police, and curious onlookers in
the1r wake. Passmg houses draped with makeshift banners proclaiming
Welcome, ACORN squatters, the crowd halted in front of a boarded-up
block. A young black woman mounted the steps

I decided .to because ... in Richard Allen project and you know
what that s hke-the rats and the cnme and the stink and all .... I need a
house for my children! This is our moment. We are going to fix up this house and
make it a place to live.
The crowd applauded. Two men with crowbars climbed the steps and pried
the sheet metal off the doorway. The young woman raised her arm in a
gesture of victory, and the crowd cheered. She turned and entered the
house, followed by the cameras and the curious.
The house was in good condition, considering the neglect it had suffered;
the young woman was pleased. Some neighbors brought brooms and plastic
trash bags to remove the debris. The police remained outside, observing the
scene and relaying perfunctory reports on their walkie-talkies.
Through the afternoon, the march snaked its way across the neighbor-
hood, stopping every few blocks to tear the boards off an abandoned house.
The ritual was reenacted at each site. Later, there was an impromptu
barbecue on a vacant lot. The crowd slowly diminished as cars departed for
parallel actions in South and Southwest Philadelphia. By the end of the day,
squatters had seized 30 more houses in the city.

Some History
To squat is to occupy property without pennission owner. It is th.e
time-hallowed response of the landless to the contradiCtion between thetr
own impoverishment and a surfeit of unutilized property. .
In nineteenth-century America, with its vast o_f Wilderness,
squatting was a common way of life. Though w1dely sanct1oned on
frontier, its extension to settled and urbanizing areas was more problematic.
When gold was discovered in Sacramento in 1849, the boom attracted land
speculators who acquired lots cheaply and rented them for of
dollars a month. Prospectors could not or would not pay these pnces, so they
settled where they pleased and formed a Associat_ion to represent
their interests. The landowners responded m 1850 by a law passed
that allowed evictions without the customary legal protections. In August of
that year, a squatter was evicted fr.om his and thrown !n jail. Members
of the Settlers Association immediately umted to defend him, and a shoot-
out ensued (Royce, 1885).
430 Strategies for Change
A similar mode of squatting flourishes today in of developing
countries around the world, from San Juan, to Capetown,
South Africa. In cities such as these, swollen by m1grat1on from rural areas,
housing for the poor is crowded, unsafe, or simply unav3:ilable. poor
solve the problem by squatting on vacant at margms of the City.
some instances, squatters have succeeded m creat1ng full-fledged commum-
ties, with streets, utilities, schools, and permanent. In other cases
their settlements have been bulldozed by the authontles (Ross,1973; Stren,
1975; Washington Post, May 20, 1983). .. . .
Squatting inevitably conveys a political message, cntlcal of the ex1stmg
system, even when squatters are not conscious of it. The symbo.lic authority
of the act has not gone unnoticed by political movements seekmg an effec-
tive protest tactic.
An example from our own history is the Bonus Expeditionary Force of
1932. Three hundred unemployed World War I veterans began a journey to
Washington, D.C., to demand an advance payment of veterans' bonuses
promised by Congress. The idea caught on, and some 20,000 veterans
descended on the capital, where they squatted in vacant buildings and on
federal land. The squatters were an embarrassment to President Hoover,
who asked Congress to pay the way home of any veteran who wanted to
leave. Few took advantage of the offer. Finally, Hoover called in the army.
Six tanks and 700 troops rousted the squatters with teargas and burned their
shacks. However, the protest could not be considered a failure; Hoover lost
the election that year, and Roosevelt's New Deal provided some relief to the
unemployed (Warren, 1967).
Later in that decade, a group called the Southern Tenant Farmers Union
organized a protest by 1,700 sharecropper families who had been evicted
from their farms. These families camped out beside a major highway in
southeast After confrontations with the police, they eventually
won cash relief and resettlement in Farm Security Administration housing
(Grubbs, 1971; Mitchell, 1979) .
. the past 15 years squatters' movements have bloomed in the major
of Western Europe. The character of these movements is explicitly
pohucal. Although som.e of the predominantly young squatters are moti-
vated by personal housmg needs, and a few disclaim political intent, the
fundamental thrust of the. action is a protest against policies that
have created severe housmg shortages m these affluent cities, and against
the development-at-any-cost values that undergird these policies. The new
European squatters have not yet _in stemming the tide of develop-
ment. But they have fought the authontJes to a standstill in their own
e.nclaves, and have established de facto "squatters' rights" on many occa-
Sions (Greenfield, 1981; Kearns, 1980) .
.This capsu_le survey suggests that governments may respond to squatting
w1th Another common response is to "tame"
squattmg by hcensmg It w1thm a restricted context. In the United States this
has gone under the name of "homesteading."
 Low-Income Homeownership and the ACORN Campaign 431

The first homesteading legislation was approved by Congress in

It proVIded free of federal land to applicants who would
1mprove the land for agnculture and reside there for at least five years .
. The Act was the l?roduct of a 20-year debate over the disposi-
tiOn ?f pubhc land on the front1er. Supporters of homesteading contended
that It would encourage owner occupancy of land and accelerate settlement·
they also saw homesteading as an "escape valve for the urban poor and
of avoiding downward pressure on wages. " 1 Opponents of homestead-
mg argued that
.. : away land would property values of remaining land and create
an to those who had paad for the property. They also argued that it
would enlace the unprepared .and unwary into a highly risky venture. Finally,
they argued that homesteadmg was an indiscriminate form of charity that
helped those perfectly able to support themselves instead of those who legiti-
mately needed public aid.

The initial homesteading proposals reflected the radical views of their

sponsors: Grants were to be limited to the poor, and the sale of government
land was to be curtailed. But many legislators felt that the urban poor would
be unable to meet the expenses of moving to the frontier and improving the
land. As finally enacted, the Homestead Act of 1862 contained no eligibility
restrictions on income or assets. And the federal government continued to
sell prime land to speculators and award large tracts to railroad companies.
On its own terms, the Homestead Act was a success. Hundreds of
thousands of individuals received land grants, and many succeeded as
farmers. The main beneficiaries of the program were families of moderate
means who could afford the cost of travel, supplies, and equipment. The
program declined as the frontier moved west to agriculturally marginal land,
and it was finally closed down in the twentieth century.
A generation later, the concept of an "urban frontier" came into vogue,
and with it came a new field for homesteading. Urban homesteading was a
response to two distinct problems. One was the private
from inner-city neighborhoods, which led to a rap1d mcrease
abandonment.ln the early 1970s, Wilmington, Baltimore, and Ph!ladelphl.a
established experimental programs that sold abandoned houses for a nomi-
nal fee to homesteaders who agreed to rehabilitate them. The other problem
was a growing inventory of vacant federally owned houses, generated
mainly by foreclosures of FHA-insured mongages 1973). In 1970,
the FHA owned 21,000 single-family propenies; by 1974 Jt.owned
Congress responded by authorizing a homesteadmg program m
Section 810 of the Housing and Commumty Development Act of 1974.
During the congressional floor debate on this measure •. proponents
argued that homesteading of vacanl federally owned propen1es would re-
duce the blighting influence of alleviate the of
housing for low- and moderate-mcome families. Opponents.
whether lower-income families could afford the costs of rehabthtatlon and
432 Strategies for Change
suggested that more affluent families would be the _olti!l'ate
"Middle-income and upper-income pe?ple are mto Balttm.?re and
paying $1 for these houses, and makmg out of them, noted
Representative William Barrett of Pennsylvama. Concerns also ex-
pressed about the indeterminate costs of the program, and tts unproven
methods (U.S. HUD, !977b). Interestingly, the debate did not break along
conventional party or ideological lines. The leadmg of the
legislation were two representatives from MarJone Holt,
servative suburban Republican, and Parren Mttchell, a black Balttmore
Democrat. Among the more vocal skeptics were Barrett, a Philadelphia
Democrat, and Republican Gerry Brown of Michigan.
The act that emerged from Congress in 1974 was, like the Homestead Act
of 1862, a compromise. On the critical matter of homesteader selection, the
legislation required that "special consideration'' be given to the applicants'
need for housing and their capacity to make the required improvements.
The inevitable tension between the "housing need" criterion, which favored
lower-income applicants, and the "capacity to repair" criterion, which
favored higher-income applicants, was left unresolved. Although the houses
were to be provided by the federal government, management of the pro-
gram was entrusted to localities, which were given wide discretion over
homesteader selection and other aspects of program administration. The
language of the act suggested that Section 810 was conceived as a "demon-
stration" of the viability of homesteading in carefully targeted neighbor-
hoods.
As the program was implemented in the years following its enactment, the
issue of homesteader selection was conclusively resolved in favor of middle-
income applicants. HUD initially provided local homesteading agencies
with a special allocation of Section 312 low-interest rehabilitation loans
to encourage low- and moderate-income participation, although
not hmtted to that purpose. But appropriations for Section 312 were steadily
reduced after 1978, and no alternative mechanism was created. 3 Instead
HUD advised to. use Community Development Block
as a source of Some did so, but competition for
was so mtense that relatively little support was generated in
Local officials providing homesteads to a tiny cadre of
Y.oung, up.wardly mobile famthes was a more prudent course than an ambi-
tious low-mco":Ie effort, and Hl!D did nothing to discourage this view. The
remamed .small, turnmg.<;>ver than 1,000 houses annually
and. I_Tuddle-class famthes recetved the vast majority of the
houses m most cttles. 1979, the latest year for which data are available,
mean household mcome for homesteaders was about $17,000, only
slightly average of$17,700. 4 The absence of more recent
of HUD's reluctance to engage the issue of home-
Needless to say, the federal homesteading program-whatever its ex-
 Low-Income Homeownership and the ACORN Campaign 433

perimental merits-:-was having. little impact on the twin problems of aban-

donmef!t need, both of which were reaching crisis
proportions m dtstressed cUtes as In 1977 many of the
more tha':120,000_ abandoned butldmgs m Phaladelphia were HUD owned;
North alof!e had 5,000 HUD homes. The situation impelled a
bold and chansmattc neighborhood leader named Milton Street to organize
a Walk-In Urban Homesteading Program-less euphemistically,
a squatters movement.
Street"s put 200 squatters into HUD-owned single-familY
houses. The act1on produced a heated response from public officials. HUD
Secretary Patricia Harris described the squatters as "no better than shoplift-
ers" and the president of the Philadelphia City Council warned of the
"beginning of anarchy." But the public generally supported the squatters,
and the press was sympathetic as well. A Philadelphia Daily News editorial
(Aug. 8, 1977) proclaimed that Street "is putting people who need homes
into houses that have stood vacant far too long .... Rather than doing
battle with Street, the Rizzo Administration and HUD should get behind
the man and help him. " 5
Though loathe to "get behind" a man who had thoroughly embarrassed
them, federal and city officials quietly capitulated. Half of Street's squatters
eventually received title to their houses at nominal cost, fifty purchased their
homes with FHA or conventional mortgages, and many of the rest remained
in place under rental agreements with HUD.

The ACORN Squatters Movement

Milton Street's example inspired a of squa.tter.s' movements in
Philadelphia. The Association of Commumty .for.
Now, or ACORN, an established grassroots commumty m 10
states, opened a Philadelphia office in Its membership fro.m
welfare recipients to middle-class professiOnals, but t.he heart of Its
uency in Philadelphia, as elsewhere, was the workmg poor. The .typ1cal
ACORN member, tenant or homeowner, was finnly to a netghb?r-
hood and committed to its improvement. And the most vasible pervasive
blight in ACORN's Philadelphia neighborhoods was housmg abandon-

two years after Street's initial squatting .• the character of

Philadelphia's abandonment problem had altered sigmficantly.
rassed by its status as the nation's largest slumlord, HUD had
liquidated its inventory through demolition, sale, of
to localities During the same period, the city of Philadelphia was
title to of vacant houses, mainly as a result . or
nonpayment of taxes. Neighborhood to sh1ft thetr attention
to the city-owned housing stock and to the caty s Gaft Property program' the
local homesteading effon.
434 Strategies for Change
On paper, Gift Property was a urban homest.e.ading pro-
gram, providing houses for $13 to agreed to rehabdttate
Deeper scrutiny revealed systematic and
Somewhat irregularly, the program was not by the ctty s
housing bureaucracy, but by the office of Ctty Counctlma.n Harry P. Ian-
notti, a Democratic machine stalwart. In had a
few hundred homes, many of them to real estate mterests pohttcal
cronies. One speculator had obtained 30 Gift Property whtch was
renting out, in violation of program rules. In the. meantime, 5,000 apphcants
languished on the waiting list, and the stock of ctty-owned houses seemed.to
be mounting, although the records were so poor that no one could say wtth
certainty how many houses the city owned.
On March 7, 1979, 75 members of ACORN and the allied Kensington
Joint Action Committee (KIAC) descended on Iannotti's office carrying
scraps of paper with the addresses of 300 vacant, city-owned properties.
They demanded that Iannotti match these properties to applicants within
two weeks and that he release the waiting list of applicants along with a
listing of all the houses previously conveyed under the program. 6
When the two-week deadline was up, the group returned to find Iannotti's
office locked and under armed guard. After ACORN threatened to sue for
the files, the city agreed to release them. A week later, the records myster-
iously disappeared in a "burglary." The campaign then shifted its focus to
the City Council, where independent Councilmember Lucien Blackwell
introduced a bill to remove control of the program from Iannotti. With the
machine faction in command of the council, Blackwell's bill was consigned
to limbo.
By this point, ACORN's leadership had reached certain conclusions. It
was agreed that reform of the Gift Property program should remain an
organizational priority despite the level of resistance from the city; the issue
was so critical, and the conduct of the program so indefensible, that some
kind of victory seemed assured if ACORN and KIAC could maintain the
pressure. Second, there was consensus that a new and more militant tactic
was needed. Squatting was the obvious choice. Finally, it was clear that
ACORN's active could supply relatively few prospective
The squatters were applicants on the Gift Property
waltmg hst hke them. Mobilizing this young, transient constit-
ue.ncy and mtegratmg it with the existing neighborhood base became the
of the ACORN homesteading campaign.
Smce Jan.nottt refused to release the waiting list, this constituency had to
be m other ways. The most effective mechanism was a flyer that
Need a Call ACORN. The flyer cautioned that ACORN
dtd not have houses to gtve away, but that, by organizing, the Gift Property
program could be made to work. It drew thousands of phone calls to the
ACORN and h_undreds of people to meetings in North, South, and
Southwest Phtladelphm. Some of those who responded had been on the Gift
 Low-Income Homeownership and the ACORN Campaign 435

list for ye_ars, had_ never. .of the program. They were
umted by a deep With housing situation. Typi-
they shan_ng a cramped _res1dence with relatives or living in one of
Phlladelph1.a s notonously and unsafe public housing projects.
squatters were mformed that squatting was illegal, physically
and nsky. There was.no guarantee that any squatter would obtain
!1tle_ to a .. the same t.hey were told that squatting was morally
JUS!tfiable m th1s mstance, that 11 be the only way to force the city into
act1on, and that ACORN would put 1ts full organizational weight behind the
squatting effort.
Scores of people decided to take the risk. Before squatting, they were
asked to take certain functional steps designed to reinforce their under-
standing and commitment. First, squatters were asked to identify five vacant
houses in which they were interested. They then proceeded to check the
deeds and property-tax records for these houses.' Next, they were required
to sign a "squatters' contract," which obligated them to participate in
meetings, rallies, and other activities generated by the campaign to reform
Gift Property; this was to be a collective struggle, not just a battle for one's
own house. Finally, squatters were instructed to obtain the signatures of75
percent of their prospective neighbors on a petition endorsing the squatting
action, and to obtain concrete assistance from these neighbors wherever
feasible.
The squatting action itself developed cenain regular features. There was
always a rally to demonstrate neighborhood suppon for the squatter. Minis-
ters and sympathetic elected officials were invited to participate in order to
lend legitimacy to the tactic; two ministers removed the boards from the first
ACORN squatter's house. The press was generally invited as well. After the
boards were removed, neighbors and supporters remained through the
afternoon, helping to clean the house and serving as a guard against evic-
tions.
The first ACORN squatters moved in on July 27, 1979, impelling the City
Council to resurrect Lucien Blackwell's reform bill. A public hearing on the
bill degenerated into a shouting match, and 100 ACORN and me_m-
bers walked out when the bill was tabled. But they had succeeded m makmg
Gift Propeny a major political issue and a liability for the on
the council. Adding to the machine's woes a stnng of. md1ctments
stemming from the federal "Abscam" investigatiOn; JannotU was
those indicted. In the fall elections, the machine's grip on the counc1l was
loosened, and a new mayor, William Green, was elected "':ith a clear
mandate to reform the city's housing programs. Cont_rol of the G1ft Property
program was subsequently transferred from to the Office of
ing and Community Development, whose director was a mayoral appmn-
lee. The squatters had won f:beir firsl victory. .. ,
With Jannotti oul of the p1cture, the squatters upped the
demanded the deeds to rhe houses they were occupying and 1mmed1ate
436 Strategies for Change
reforms in the Gift Property program, an
process, free access to information, tighter rest.nctiOns on ehgtbthty, and a
tenfold expansion in the number of bemg turned over.
Green and his appointees did not accede demands. The
pattern was one of alternating confrontation and negottatton. I.n response to
each wave of squatting, the city offered some programmatic reforms, a
commitment to transfer some deeds, and de facto legal amnesty for all
existing squatters, in exchange for an from ACORN and KJAC
that no new squatting actions would be orgamzed. ACORN and K.JAC
accepted the deal, subject to .revocation the city's was
unsatisfactory. For a short whtle, peace retgned, .but the ctty mevttably
failed to fulfill all its commitments, and the squattmg cycle began anew.

The Philadelphia Model

Each cycle moved the program forward, and out of this conflict-ridden
process emerged a new conception of urban homesteading-the Phil-
adelphia model. The essence of the Philadelphia model was to conceive of
homesteading primarily as a housing program rather than as a property
rehabilitation program, and as a large-scale effort rather than as a showcase
demonstration. The program had several key components:
• Restriction of eligibility to low- and moderate-income families. Local
homesteading programs have tended to favor middle-income applicants,
partly for political reasons, and partly on the assumption that middle-
income families have more cash and more skills to apply to home rehabilita-
tion and improvement. But if homesteading is conceived of primarily as a
housing program, an eligibility standard based on need seems appropriate.
Furthermore, the assumption that lower-income families cannot perform
rehabilitation without massive assistance is questionable. The Philadelphia
squatters insisted that the city's rehabilitation cost estimates were inflated.
and they cited examples of low-income squatters who were rehabilitating
their houses on a "self-help" basis with the assistance of neighbors and
Their position was bolstered by an Office of Housing and Com-
mumty Development study that concluded that there was no significant
relationship between the income of Gift Property applicants and their
success rate as homes!eaders. 8 Philadelphia ultimately restricted eligibility
to households whose mcome was 80 percent or less of the median for the
Philadelphia metropolitan area.
• Sufficient time to bring homesteads up to code. Self-help rehabilitation
by took longer to complete but produced work
that equal m quahty to that performed by professional contractors,··
accordmg to a report by HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
1982). Yet some local homesteading programs require participants
to ehmmate all code violations with six months to a year. By contrast, the
 Low·lncome Homeownership and the ACORN Campaign 437

mod.el calls a more extended, two·step process: one year to

ehmmate maJor code defects posing a substantial danger to life
and safety, whtch the homesteader receives the deed to the property,
and two additional years lo complete the renovation.
• Financial for. rehabilitation. Despite the importance of the
m homeing, structural repairs and renova-
tion of maJor systems (wmng, and heating) must often be per-
formed by contractors. Few lower-mcome families can afford these ex-
penses without some fonn of financial assistance.
The most common fonn of government assistance is a low-interest loan."
Because homesteaders not have t.o. mortgage or rental payments,
they are able to carry stzable rehabilitation loans if the interest rates are
sufficiently _low. For example, a $10.000 loan at 3 percent, payable over 10
years. reqUires a monthly payment of $95.56, well within the budget of most
low-income households.
Philadelphia evenlually established a program, known as Action Loans,
precisely along lhese lines, but it does not allocate sufficient funds to make
low-intereslloans available to all homesteaders who need them. The prog-
ram's credit guidelines also exclude some low-income homesteaders. In
shan, the city assimilaled the technical components of the model, without
implementing the underlying entitlement principle.
• Production quotas. The model calls for a monthly quota appropriate to
the city's size, administrative capacity, and level of abandonment. The value
of a quota as an accountability mechanism is obvious. It also reinforces the
conception of homesteading as a program designed to have a real impact on
the problems of abandonment and housing distress, in contrast to the
well-intentioned irrelevance of many homesteading demonstrations.
The Philadelphia squatters demanded that the city convey 200 houses a
month. City officials resisted the quotas, but expanded the program from an
average of 5 to 10 houses a month to over 50. The demand for additional
houses raised the question of why many abandoned properties were not
available for homesteading purposes.
• AggreJSive solicitation ofhouses. In Philadelphia, as in other
around the country, the largest proportion of vacant properttes netther
city owned nor federally owned but privately owned and tax delinquent.
Many of these houses have been abandoned for years. Eventually they will
be foreclosed on for nonpayment of property taxes, and will be off
at an event known as "tax sale" or "sheriffs sale." Those that remam unsold
at sheriffs sale fall into public ownership, where they are potentially
able for homesteading. But the process takes so long-five years or more ts
not unusual--that the houses may have fallen apart in time. Thus,
proponents of large-scale homesteading eff?rts have an m accelerat-
ing the tax foreclosure process or developmg. to tt.
Before the squatters entered the picture, had developed one
alternative: a "donor-taker" provision that allowed delinquent taxpayers to
donate their houses to the homesteading pool and deduct the assessed value
438 Strategies for Change
from back taxes owed. (This was the "gift" provision to which the program's
name referred.) Under pressure from the squatters, the city began to use
Community Development Block Grant funds to purchase low-value houses
from their owners and bid on houses at sheriff's sale to prevent them from
being acquired by speculators. City officials implemented a technical change
that accelerated the acquisition of full title to tax-foreclosed properties by
six to nine months. They also experimented with the use of"spot condemna-
tion" powers derived from urban renewal legislation to obtain properties
designated by homesteaders.
All these measures helped to expand the pool of homestead properties,
but their impact was relatively minor. A more radical solution was proposed
by Councilman John Street, Milton's brother, and ultimately adopted by the
council. Street's ordinance permits the city to declare an abandoned house a
public nuisance and contract with a Gift Property applicant to occupy the
house immediately and commence improvements. If the city subsequently
obtains title to the house, the homesteader may claim it; if the original
owner manages to redeem the property, he must reimburse the city for
contracted improvements, and the city in turn reimburses the homesteader.
By short-circuiting the cycle of abandonment and foreclosure, the Street
ordinance aims not only to expand the homesteading pool but to reduce the
unit cost of rehabilitation, since houses "caught" earlier in the cycle are
likely to require less extensive renovation. 10

The Road to Tent City

By the end of 1981, the City Council and the Office of Housing and
Community Development had implemented many elements of the Phil-
adelphia modeL City officials continued to denounce squatting, but none of
the ACORN and KJAC squatters had been evicted, and some had received
the deeds to their houses.
ne.ws of the. .of the Philadelphia actions spread to ACORN
affihates m to scrutinize their local homesteading
The s.1tuauon 1n some Cities bordered on the scandalous. Detroit,
with the mventory HUD-owned houses in the country, had a tiny
program to two. 12 houses had been conveyed in a
Detroit s general pohcy was to demolish vacant houses and
land bank the property. InS!. Louis, another city with a massive abandon-
ment problem, the agency was refusing to turn over 32 houses
that had been cla1med. from the federal government for homesteading
purposes. The St. Loms Land Reutilization Authority, an autonomous
.. owned 1,000 vacant houses, many of which had
been langmshmg m 1ts mventory for years.
HUD cited the homesteading programs of Dallas Texas and
Columbus, Ohio, as models. Both cities had turned over 300
 Low-Income Homeownership and the ACORN Campaign 439

to homesteaders, few subsequent failures. But ACORN groups

m and Columbus dtscovered th.at this "success" had been achieved by
conveymg most of the _to families. Neither city had
established an adequate rehab1htat1on program. These cities had a low rate
of failure because they took few risks .
. Local ACORN. organization_s responded to these findings with conven-
protest and and leaders from Philadelphia
VISited other cttles to explam how 11 was done. By April 1982, there were
more than 200 ACORN squatters in 13 cities; the largest numbers were in
distressed cities such as Detroit, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, but there were
also squatters in Houston, Dallas, Tulsa, and Phoenix.
City and federal authorities cracked down hard in some locations. Squat-
ters were arrested in Pittsburgh and St. Louis; a HUD Area Office manager
led a midnight raid on a squatter's house in Dallas; the St. Louis Land
Reutilization Authority filed a $500,000 civil suit against ACORN and the
leaders of its squatting group. With rare exceptions, mayors denounced the
squatters and refused to negotiate with them. But the response was more
positive in some quarters: the Detroit City Council passed a resolution
asking for the establishment of a large-scale urban homesteading program
and clemency for the squatters; favorable columns and editorials appeared
in the metropolitan newspapers of Fort Worth, Atlanta, and St. Louis; the
St. Louis tax collector agreed to accelerate the tax foreclosure process on
abandoned houses suitable for homesteading; Mayor Andrew Young of
Atlanta agreed 10 negotiate; homesteading ordinances based on the Phil-
adelphia model were introduced in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Detroit.
As squatting erupted around the country, the goals of the campaign
became more diverse. The Tulsa squatting effort was part of a long-standing
protest against redevelopment and displacement on the city's Side.
An ACORN group fighting public housing vacancies in Flor-
ida, squatted briefly in a housing project to dramatize the tssue. In c1ttes such
as Houston and Phoenix, which have relatively few abandoned houses,
squatters' primary goal was not to create urban homesteadmg
programs but to challenge the complacent assumptton that the poor are
adequately housed in these Sunbelt communities. .
During the same period--winter and spring 1982-the campa1gn to
develop a national focus. In cities such as Detroit and a large portion
of the vacant housing stock was still federally owned, H':JD a more
direct involvement in the issue. Furthermore, ACORNs national lead-
ership was beginning to appreciate the symbo_lic power of and its
potential for broader impact. The Jeadershtp. began to concetve of the
campaign, not only as a fight for local homesteadmg reforms, but as a
against the failure of the nation to provide decent and affordable. to
low- and moderate-income families. Squatting was to be the tactical vehtcle
for this protest homesteading its programmatic vehicle. .
As ACORN' members became more familiar with the r_ederal role. tn
homesteading policy, they realized that HUD's interpretation of Sectton
440 Strategies for Change

810 legislation was the source ofma.ny.ofthe proble"'!s.they were encount.er-

ing at the local level. HUD officials that ties were free destgn
their own programs, but although thts was techmcally correct m many
instances, it was obvious that the cities took their cues from Washington.
For example, squatters were often infuriated when cities refused to expand
homesteading programs beyond a few targeted neighborhoods. City of-
ficials inevitably attributed this policy to HUD. The truth was a bit more
complicated: HUD's regulations did not prohibit a more expansive
approach to homesteading, but they strongly encouraged neighborhood
targeting, as did HUD program literature and the agency's field officials.
The federal agency also seemed unconcerned about the middle-class charac-
ter of the program, the shortage of funds for homestead rehabilitation, and
the disparity between the enormous scope of the abandonment problem and
the minuscule homesteading effort. 11
On June 5, 1982, ACORN members in seven cities squatted in HOD-
owned houses despite threats of eviction and arrest from HUD officials.
Two days later, more than 300 persons sat in at HUD offices in 12 cities.
Both actions were intended to underline the federal responsibility for effec-
tive homesteading programs and for addressing the housing problems of
low- and moderate-income Americans. In doing so, they set the stage for the
culminating event of the "national strategy"-a squatters' Tent City in
Washington, D. C.
Tent City was established on the Ellipse, a few hundred yards from the
porch of the White House, and housed more than 200squatters from 10
The squatters used a press conference, a rally, a congressional hear-
mg. and a march on the HUD building to press their case for reform of the
federal P.rogram. At the hearing conducted by the House
Subcommittee on J:Iousmg and Community Development, Representative
.st Germam of Rhode Island told the squatters, "I don't consider
you cnmmals ... : You are the community a favor" (U.S. Congress,
House, Subcommtttee on Housmg and Community Development, 1982a).
The squatt.ers that homesteading efforts be targeted to low- and
famlltes, that more vacant houses be made available for
and that more funds be allocated for low-interest rehabilita-
1? March 1983, Congressman William Coyne of Pennsylvania introduced
a btll to reshape the federal homesteading program along the lines advo-
.by ACORN .. Despite J:IUD's opposition, the Coyne bill received
btparttsan support m the Housmg and Community Development Subcom-
an? was approved by the full House as part of a comprehensive
housmg bti.L that bill did not advance further, elements of the
homesteadmg provtstons were incorporated in the 1983 Housing and
Urban-Rural Recovery Act. The legislation does the following:
• up to three years to meet local housing code
 Low·Income Homeownership and the ACORN Campaign 441

• Gives homesteaders priority access to Section 312 low-interest

rehabilitation loans.
• Requires local homesteading programs to stress housing need in the
selection criteria for homesteaders.
• Establishes a $1 million demonstration program providing federal
assistance for the acquisition of privately owned vacant houses for
homesteading purposes.
The squatters did not get everything they wanted, but they recognized a
victory, and so did others. A HUD official told an ACORN representative,
"Congress listened to you folks, and we're going to have to listen to you
too."
The congressional hearing and other Tent City activities were reported in
the squatters' hometown newspapers and received some national media
coverage as well. Squatting for Homeless Gain.s S11pport was the headline in
the Tulsa Tribune. ACORN Finally Gels HUD's Ear, proclaimed the Co-
lumbus Citizen-loumal. By publicizing and legitimizing the squatters'
cause, the D.C. action helped to sustain the momentum of local homestead-
ing campaigns, which have since borne fruit. Bridgeport, Connecticut, and
Des Moines, Iowa, have established homesteading programs based on the
Philadelphia model. New funds for homestead acquisition and rehabilita-
tion assistance have been appropriated in Phoenix ($200,000), Columbus
(S800,000) and Brooklyn ($1 million). Mayor Coleman Young of Detroit,
once an implacable opponent of the squatters, has announced a program to
give away 500 propenies, and the Detroit City Council approved a bill-
modeled on John Street's nuisance abatement ordinance-that would per-
mit homesteading in privately owned. tax-delinquent houses.

Radical Principles, Friendly Terrain

Five years ago, single-family urban homesteading programs were, at
irrelevant to the needs of poor people and at worst a means for thear
displacement. The notion that these programs could serve a mass: low-
income constituency had limited credibility and had never been
tested. Today, this notion has not a concrete,
form-the Philadelphia model-but 1s mftuencmg_ local and poh-
cies. This achievement can be credited almost ent1rely to the acuon of the

be gratifying to conclude that the had !n

their broader objective of forcing government to take mcreased responsabll-
ity for low-income housing. But although the squatters d.rew
attention to housing issues and disturbed the complacency of pubh.c
they were swimming against a powerful current. The Reagan admtmstrauon
budgets have cut federal housing programs more than any other
major area [see Chapter 21 by Chester HartmanJ. Thas reflects not only the
442 Strategies for Change
administration's antipathy to these programs but the of politi-
cal constituency for housing. With or without the pros-
pects for a renewed national commitment to low-mcome housmg appear
many observers, therefore, the most aspect of the. squat-
ters' campaign is that it succeeded at all. Durmg a peno?.charactenzed by
political reaction and social quiescence, mobilized hundreds of
militant squatters, backed by thousands of orgamzed and
significant policy reforms in the face of deep resistance from public officials.
What made this possible?
Viewed nakedly as a tactic, squatting was enormously effective. Its visual
drama and clarity drew TV cameras and newspaper photographers. Its
programmatic clarity-filling empty houses with families who shel-
ter-lent it both power and legitimacy. To many among the pubhc, the
press, the ministry, and even to some housing officials, the moral logic of the
action outweighed its patent illegality.
The combination of intense militancy and public legitimacy reflects the
manner in which the campaign's tactics and programmatic demands em-
bodied radical principles in a politically compelling context. The squatters
insisted that they had a right to decent housing, and that this right took
precedence over the rights of property. In the abstract, such principles do
not command the support of a majority of Americans; national housing
policy is certainly not founded on them. Yet in the particular form posed by
the squatters, these principles were almost unassailable.
At a time when Americans were increasingly hostile to anything per-
ceived as a "giveaway" program, the squatters proclaimed that they were
not looking for a handout but an opportunity. They cast their demands in
terms of individual initiative, mutual assistance, and the superiority of
homeownership, all culturally sanctioned values in the United States. Their
position was bolstered by the visible failure of the for-profit "private sector"
to maintain housing in their neighborhoods. And homesteading had fiscal
appeal as well; even with the provision of generous rehabilitation loans, it
appeared to be a relatively inexpensive means of producing low-income
housing, and it promised to restore abandoned property to the tax rolls.
Just .as important the campaign's external legitimacy was its internal
In the classic mode of community organizing, the squatters' cam-
paign appealed to a fundamental need in a direct and immediate way. Need a
hous.e? Call flyer was sometimes criticized for its audacity,
but 1t of the appeal that drew hundreds of previously
mdJVJduals to ACORN offices, just as the simplicity of the
can:patgn's central premise-"The houses are ours!"-propelled them to
action. have seen, ACORN developed a fairly sophisti-
cated cnttque of urban homesteadmg pohcy and a detailed program for
reform. But these emerged from the campaign, rather than vice versa. The
squatters understood the policy issues and embraced the policy demands
 Low-Income Homeownership and the ACORN Campaign 443

issues and demands took their ultimate shape from the collec-
tive expenence of protest .
. Another factor in the success was ACORN's capacity to forge
hnks between squatters and 1ts traditional neighborhood-based constit-
uency. neighborhood base provided squatters with material and
support •.as as public legitimacy. (Many TV news
accounts mcluded mterv1ews with squatters' neighbors, who inevitably said
they preferred to have a squatter next door than an abandoned haven for
rats and junkies.) And ACORN's experienced neighborhood leaders con-
tributed and organizational sophistication, which tempered the
youthful militance of the squatters without smothering it.
One reason that the cause of low-income housing has suffered defeats in
recent years is the absence of a grassroots constituency to generate, moni-
tor, and defend programs. Some low-income housing programs are too
complex or diffuse to attract grassroots support; others, like public housing,
are unwelcome in many communities. Homesteading, on the other hand, is
blessed with two large, enthusiastic constituencies: families that need
houses, and residents of neighborhoods with many abandoned properties. If
the identification and mobilization of such "natural" constituencies is not a
precondition for policy reform, it is certainly a major asset.
But this analysis of the squatters' campaign raises as many questions as it
answers. Even if all the abandoned houses in the United States suitable for
homesteading were turned over to poor people, could it have a major impact
on the nation's low-income housing problem? Aren't the economics of
low-income homeownership so daunting that it represents a dubious basis
for policy, and a cruel and dangerous myth for the poor? [See Chapter 26 by
Robert Kolodny and Chapter 27 by Tony Schuman.J Doesn't the appeal to
values such as self-reliance and fiscal efficiency play into the hands of those
who wish to absolve the government of responsibility for housing? If the
objective is fundamental reform of housing policie.s, why not
posals and campaigns which confront the central1ssues of
ment, and resources in a comprehensive fashion rather than at_the1r
edges? In short, could one characterize the squatters' campa1gn as tactically
instructive but peripheral to the main lines of for housing reform?
The most superficial response is that the campa1gn e_ncompassed a
broader range of issues than the management des1gn of homesteadmg
programs. In the course of their efforts to obtam. h.ouses, the squatters had
an impact on federal property disposition pohc1es, the tax foreclosure
process, housing speculation, redevelopment plans_. code
They disseminated new approaches to home rehabthtauon financmg,
benefited existing homeowners as often as John s
"nuisance abatement'' ordinance, a product of the campatgn, was a rad1cal
innovation in local housing policy· .
And squatting embodied much more than the pohcy demands of
squatters; it was a blatant challenge to the assumptions and values on whtch
444 Strategies for Change

U.S. housing policy is founded. The desperation of th.e squatters mocked

the assumption that Americans are well ho.used; their eagerness tear
down the boards asserted the primacy ofhousmg needs over property nghts;
their uncompromising demand for the deeds lent to the
principle of entitlement. Of course, they ca.st this challenge <:'n fnen.dly
terrain: the social terrain of their home neighborhoods, the Ideological
terrain of the American Dream. But that is precisely what is instructive
about their experience.
At present, comprehensive policy reforms such as the establi.shment of a
national housing entitlement are improbable under any scenano; the costs
are too high, the political constituency for refonn too weak, the bias against
government action too well entrenched. The only way to advance fun-
damental reform is through the accretion of small but principled victories,
which undermine the hegemony of dominant values and assumptions and
enhance the credibility of alternatives [see Chapter 24 by Kathy McAfee].
When these victories involve ordinary people in the criticism and formula-
tion of policy, they build an informed popular constituency for change.
Hence, the key to the strategy is identifying friendly terrain-campaigns
that can mobilize large numbers of people on their home grounds and win a
broad base of public legitimacy.
Where is this terrain? Our own view is that it is most likely to be found in
two areas. One is the effort to lend rental housing some of the characteristics
of equity: security of tenure, predictability of costs, control over quality [see
Chapter 22 by John Atlas and Peter Dreier, Chapter 24 by Kathy McAfee,
Chapter 26 by Robert Kolodny, and Chapter 29 by Chester Hartman and
Michael E. Stone]. The other is the effort to make homeownership afford-
able to the lowest-income groups, whether in the conventional form, home-
or new forms such as cooperatives and mutual housing associa-
tions.
Is the of low-income homeownership a realistic policy goal?
[For .a Cnt1callook at prohomeownership policies, in general, see Chapter 16
by Kemeny.] Here we would simply note that despite the historical
of the goal and the development, over the past decade, of
promismg new mechanisms to achieve it, policymakers have been reluctant
these methods on a mass scale. Conservative opposition to new
was expected, but the squatters also encountered ambivalence
and from politicians who had traditionally supported low-income
housmg efforts.
I.ndeed, one of the recurrent ironies of the campaign was the extent to
wh1ch support from political conservatives and moderates was
by resistance liberal mayors, housing officials, and their legisla-
tive alhes. The Gr.een administration in Philadelphia and the
Andrew Y.oung admmist:atlon in Atlanta were lukewarm, at best, to
while Mayors Kevin White in Boston and Coleman
oung m vehemently opposed any concessions to the squatters
epresentatlve Stewart McKinney, a Republican moderate from
 Low.Jncome Homeownership and the ACORN Campaign 445

cut. was one of_ the stro_ngest backers of homesteading reform in the House
while the support of Michigan's liberal Senator Donald
on the Senate housing subcommittee, was unen·
pattern is in part to crude political considerations;
was a to the folks m power at City Hall, regardless of their
..But lhere was also a strain of principled opposition,
whach, af smcere, cames a scent of paternalism. Some officials insisted that
poor people could not renovate their houses adequately without massive
financial and technical assistance, and refused to support the expansion of
homesteading opportunities unless such assistance was guaranteed. Since
the funds were not likely to be forthcoming from hard·pressed city
treasunes or the federaJ government, this was in effect a stand against the
squatters. Others argued that low-income homeownership was an expensive
luxury, theoretically desirable but practically unattainable, and hence a
diversion from the primary thrust of low-income housing policy. These
officials tended to see the squatters' demands as an implicit criticism of
existing publicly subsidized housing programs, to which they remained
committed. FinaJly, there was a deep reluctance, engendered by the per·
ceived failure of ambitious social programs in the past, to take program-
matic risks of any kind. Better to stick with the tried-and-true, it was
reasoned, even if per unil costs were high and relatively few persons were
housed, than go out on a limb with low·income homesteading.
The squatters would have none of this. They insisted that they could make
their houses livable; financial assistance would make the process faster and
smoother, but they wanted the deeds regardless. Of course there were risks,
but lhe risks were acceptable because even a problematic house was better
than what they likely would find on the private rental market. The squatters
felt that homeownership, far from being a luxury, was the only way to escape
the domination of others. They drew strength from the same values that
legitimated their militant actions to the wider public. As ACORN leader
Grover Wright infonned a congressional panel, the squat.ters "are here
because they have an insatiable desire to become a part, an part of
Ibis great American life'' (U.S. Congress, House, Subcommittee on J:Ious-
ing and Community Development, 1982a). Such "myths" are the engme of
change.

Notes
1. This quotation and the account of the 1862 Homestead Act are drawn from U.S.

HUD-owned houses are available £rom HUD's 0£fice or Single-

down Section 312, but succeeded

446 Strategies for Change
only in cutting off new appropriations. The program is currently funded entirely by loan
repayments.
4. U.S. HUD. 1983a, is the best source of data on the federal homesteading
program.
5. The account of Milton Street's campaign is drawn from Hartman, Keating,
LeGates. 1982, 68-71.
6. The best account of the early stages (1979-1980) of Philadelphia ACORN's
squatting campaign is Adamson, 1981.
7. Potential squatters were asked to check deeds and property-tax records because
squatting was encouraged only in city-owned houses and in seriously tax-delinquent
houses owned by persons outside the neighborhood-in short, houses where the squatter
had a reasonable chance of obtaining the deed, and where squatting was unlikely to create
conflict within the neighborhood.
8. The study, conducted by the Planning and Policy Research Department, was
unfortunately never published.
9. A good sourcebook on assistance mechanisms is U.S. HUD, 1980d.
10. The ordinance was introduced as Bill 1202 on April l, 1982. The program,
known as "1202A, Emergency Nuisance Abatement," is administered by Philadelphia's
Office of Housing and Community Development.
II. Regulations for the Section 810 program are in 24 CFR Part 590. The ambiguous
language on neighborhood targeting is in 590.7(a).
12. The bill was introduced as H.R.2150 on March 16, 1983, and later incorporated
in the Omnibus Housing Bill. H. R.I.