Taxpayer Funded Group Teaching Homeless How To Squat In Government Apartments

NEW YORK CITY, NY – Picture the Homeless, a not for profit advocacy group, has received more than a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer money. What did they do with it? They taught homeless people how to squat in vacant homes. Their favorite target was city owned buildings.

Recently a board member of the group, Andres Perez, held a seminar on how to take “control” of vacant apartments. He called it “homesteading.”

“The best time to enter a building is in the late hours. You make sure you have your proper tools. You remove the chains and padlock, and then you go in.”

He taught them how to do a change of address at the post office and to set up utilities. After that, “nine out of 10 times the courts will allow you to be able to have control of the property,” he said.

The legal residents of the housing complex where he gave the lecture were less than thrilled.

Pete Rolon, had been living in the complex for more than 30 years and said that after their course, two pimps squatted in two apartments in the building.

He said,

“I can’t let nobody squat where I live. There were hookers. They were smoking crack. There were condoms all over the floor. There were hundreds of them.”

“That’s not right,” said one longtime resident. “That these guys are teaching classes on this — that’s ridiculous.”

Robin Levine, a City Council spokeswoman, said,

“We’re deeply troubled by reports that Picture the Homeless is instructing New Yorkers in how to engage in dangerous and illegal activities. If these reports are in fact true, they call the group’s entire funding into question.”

Should the New York City fund a group teaching squatters and pimps how to commandeer vacant apartments?