It started with this tweet a couple of hours ago:
3Beee Farah
@KissMyEntireAzz: Homeowner in foreclosure seeks occupiers at his property in Oakland
As Susie Cagle later reports on her twitter feed, #OccupyOakland picked up on it and is #occupying the property -- which is in the process of being foreclosed on by Chase. One of the bad guys.
susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland 18 & Linden lot has 20-30 occupiers, 5-10 tents and tarps. One cop car just drove by slowly.
susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland Oh wait, more like 10-20 tents. Chase is foreclosing as of March. Ppl in touch w renters of the lot, though, not the owners.
The property in question is at 18th & Linden in Oakland. The residents are tenants, but according to the #occupyoakland twitter feed, the owners (who are the ones being foreclosed on, of course) have given their permission:
occupyoakland Occupy Oakland
Clarification:YES we do have permission from the owner. Bring sleeping bags, food, tents etc. to donate for owners & occupiers @ 18&franklin
There's no telling what is going to happen here. It's going to be hard for the City Administration to spin this against #Occupyoakland unless they act before the mainstream press get ahold of the story. But since it is private property I'm not sure the police can act (at least legally) without the approval of the owner and possibly the tenants; and if the owner has indeed given permission for them to be there (it's only a single tweet that says it is so, so let's wait for some real confirmation) that's not going to happen.
To my mind, however this particular -- somewhat impromptu -- foreclosure #occupation turns out, this is by far a better tactic for #OccupyOakland than abortive attempts to #occupy or re-#occupy city space. That's not going to happen unless the #occupiers can muster a thousand or more people twenty-four hours a day to forestall the inevitable police raid at 4:00 AM. And that's really unlikely.
There are shitloads of foreclosed and about-to-be-foreclosed houses in Oakland. Thousands of them when I looked it up online a few days ago. Enough properties to use the resources of every last #OccupyOakland participant and cry out for more. The nice thing is that each foreclosed property only requires a relatively small number of people to draw attention to the foreclosure. If the properties are chosen carefully, and the mortgaging bank has any sense, the foreclosure can be forestalled, postponed 'indefinitely' or settled in some reasonable way without the prospect of a "permanent" occupation.
The twitterverse seems to concur:
bayreporta John C. Osborn
@
@USelaine it is a smart move: camp on private property n directly benefits an aggreived party #oo #occupyoakland
GonzOakland GonzOakland
OMFG. #occupyoakland appears to be doing something unimpeachably noble. Occupying a foreclosure to protect the owner from eviction.
One more tweet from Susie Cagle, which sounds like a very smart decision, giving the police no excuses:
susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland occupiers at 18 & Linden lot voted for a substance-free camp.
Stay tuned. (Although I'll be #occupying my pillow shortly).
Mon Nov 21, 2011 at 10:57 PM PT: The SF Chronicle has it, but no mention of the foreclosure angle. Usual SF Chronicle incredibly slanted coverage against #OO.
Late Monday night, about 20 Occupy Oakland protesters pitched at least eight tents in a West Oakland lot at 18th and Linden streets, said Susie Cagle, a freelance journalist who was at that location
http://www.sfgate.com/...
7:19 AM PT: Camp still seems to exist. I haven't seen any tweets about any problems at the site.
OAKLAND, Calif.—Occupy Oakland protesters have set up tents on the property of what they say is a foreclosed home as demonstrators at other camps cleared out in response to police orders to vacate.
About 10 tents were standing on the lot in the city's West Oakland neighborhood Tuesday morning. Protesters say they have the permission of the home's former occupant to use the property.
The new camp went up fewer than 24 hours after Oakland police cleared about 100 campers from a long-standing camp at Snow Park early Monday. No arrests were reported.
Police evicted protesters from the main Occupy Oakland encampment outside city hall last week.
Demonstrators at the new site say camping on foreclosed properties calls attention to economic hardship they blame on big banks.
http://www.mercurynews.com/...