Anti-Wall Street protesters, seeking a new focus as cities across the country shut down two-month old Occupy encampments, launched a new wave of activism on Tuesday by rallying around homeowners as they try to resist evictions from foreclosed homes. Protesters gathered outside a home in a depressed San Francisco neighborhood, while in nearby Oakland they took over a vacant bank-owned property and offered it as shelter to homeless people.
In Los Angeles, they helped a former Marine move his belongings back into his foreclosed home. In Philadelphia, protesters said they were moving toward a similar strategy to focus public attention on big banks and other lenders who benefited from taxpayer-funded bailouts only to turn around and foreclose on taxpayers. The shift came after authorities in many U.S. cities, often citing health and safety conditions, moved to dismantle protest camps that sprang up as part of the Occupy movement against economic inequality and excesses of the U.S. financial system.
“People are refusing to leave,” said Vivian Richardson, speaking in front of her home in a San Francisco neighborhood where she is fighting eviction. “Today is national reoccupy our homes day.” Activists announced a coordinated series of actions in several large cities organized by a dozen loosely affiliated housing rights groups. A handful of earlier attempts to take over vacant or foreclosed property in the San Francisco Bay area failed when protesters were evicted by police.
