News
Max Rameau is an organizer of “Take Back the Land”. The organization is based in Florida where it started in Miami in the fall of 2006 and has since emerged as a national movement with affiliates in Atlanta, NYC, Boston, New Orleans, Washinton DC, Chicago, Madison, New Orleans, Toledo, Sacramento and Portland (Right to Survive). Take Back the Land holds the position that housing is a Human Right.At this time there are as many vacant homes as homeless families. Because this housing is available we should move homeless people into these unoccupied homes. But the real objective of building homes is not to house people but is to make a profit. So houses stay empty and people stay homeless. Take Back the Land identifies government owned homes that have been foreclosed and, without permission from banks or government, moves homeless people into them. Take Back the Land also supports other local groups who value humans over corporations in housing. They call themselves a “translocal movement”—facilitating the processes of action in alignment with their values by taking pre-existing and newly formed organizations and connecting them with each other.Take Back the Land believes the law should be set up to protect human beings who need homes first and foremost. Rameau also believes the Movement must be led by the people who are most affected or they’ll fail. He says shanty towns and tent cities are popping up in many places in the US and he wants to be sure they are led by the people most affected. In many cases these are low income women. We need to redesign housing and human rights needs and fight laws that support the owners along with learning from homeless people’s struggles in other countries as well.Interview conducted in August, 2010.