Homesteading in Suburbia -- Meet the Bandos

The New York Times has a piece today on what must be one of the more interesting trends to come out of the mortgage finance and housing crisis in the U.S. -- formerly homeless people taking informal and illegal possession of abandoned homes.

When the woman who calls herself Queen Omega moved into a three-bedroom house here last December, she introduced herself to the neighbors, signed contracts for electricity and water and ordered an Internet connection.

What she did not tell anyone was that she had no legal right to tbe in the home.

Ms. Omega, 48, is one of the beneficiaries of the foreclosure crisis. Through a small advocacy group of local volunteers called Take Back the Land, she moved from a friend’s couch into a newly empty house that sold just a few years ago for more than $400,000.

Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said about a dozen advocacy groups around the country were actively moving homeless people into vacant homes — some working in secret, others, like Take Back the Land, operating openly.

So not only are squatters moving in, but advocacy groups are assisting them. This is certainly an interesting (and defensible?) twist on the self-help ethos.