VICTIMS - PUT UP YOUR DUKES AND FIGHT!!!
I got a disturbing call today from a woman in Detroit, Michigan. She's a single mom of two kids with one disabled. She wound up homeless for some reason with these kids. Her social worker hasn't been able to find her housing so they put her into a mens shelter (what are they thinking?). They wouldn't give her a written lease, a key, nothing that showed she was a legal resident of this shelter. You know why? They want to be able to call her a "trespasser" any time they want and put her out. However, under the tenancy laws of Michigan - if you're invited to enter a property then you are not a trespasser, but therefore a "squatter".
Either way, they have to still give you a legal notice to evict you. Even if it's a 24 hour one. However, what disturbs me greatly is the fact I just read that Michigan passed a law in 2014 that squatters can "be forcibly physically removed" from the property? Are you kidding me? http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2014/08/there-are-some-new-squatters-laws-on-the-books-in-michigan.php
Since when does this law give anyone the right to touch another human being without their consent? I don't see anything in this law defining the difference between "removal" and "assault". If you ask me it's inviting landlords to harm tenants physically who can't afford lawyers to sue for assault. To me - this is unconstitutional. You can't deprive someone of their property, home or freedom without "due process of law".
So I talked to the mother on the phone. I told her I would send a written legal notice to her case worker, and to the landlord, that if they forced her and those kids out on the streets I would sue them for everything I could find on the books to sue them for myself. I could go to the ACLU for sexual discrimination for throwing the only female out of that shelter.
You know what she tells me? I don't "want to make trouble". This woman is African American by the way.
The two sisters I was helping in Miami were African American. They were in a motel room they had paid for. The law states even in a motel room that they have to legally evict them. I was being told that the soonest we could get them into a program is three weeks. I could fight that out in court. This meant that when the landlord came to throw them out - they just had to refuse to leave along with demanding a legal lock-out notice. Then I could also fight that in court to get those three weeks until we could get them into a program.
You know what she told me? "I don't want to make trouble". I told her I could offer the landlord advertising and a donation receipt for the value of the room for the time she stays there so he's not at a total loss for the time. She refused.
The one sister bailed on me back to the streets because she "didn't want to make trouble" with the landlord. The other one didn't want to go and we've helped her into another program by arranging to get her out of Miami.
What's going on? Why have I gotten these calls this week with no homeless beds available for women in both Miami and now Detroit? Why are two African American women telling me they're afraid to stand up and tell a cop "you touch me I file assault charges?"
I can't help but think Sandra Bland has got these women terrified. I'm terrified. The media has a lot of power. I've watched a lot of Derren Brown videos and I know the power of putting the same images into someone's eyes and I can't help but think we've been seeing a lot of the Sandra Bland's stories.
Where are our hero stories? Why is the media not inspiring us to fight back right now? Why are we talking about fighting sex trafficking when we've got young women being put onto the street - and what do you think is going to happen? That is just the prey that pimps are looking for being cast right into into the streets like shooting fish in a barrel. How much money is being put into fighting trafficking - yet these women are not getting housing?
WTF?
Either way, they have to still give you a legal notice to evict you. Even if it's a 24 hour one. However, what disturbs me greatly is the fact I just read that Michigan passed a law in 2014 that squatters can "be forcibly physically removed" from the property? Are you kidding me? http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2014/08/there-are-some-new-squatters-laws-on-the-books-in-michigan.php
Since when does this law give anyone the right to touch another human being without their consent? I don't see anything in this law defining the difference between "removal" and "assault". If you ask me it's inviting landlords to harm tenants physically who can't afford lawyers to sue for assault. To me - this is unconstitutional. You can't deprive someone of their property, home or freedom without "due process of law".
So I talked to the mother on the phone. I told her I would send a written legal notice to her case worker, and to the landlord, that if they forced her and those kids out on the streets I would sue them for everything I could find on the books to sue them for myself. I could go to the ACLU for sexual discrimination for throwing the only female out of that shelter.
You know what she tells me? I don't "want to make trouble". This woman is African American by the way.
The two sisters I was helping in Miami were African American. They were in a motel room they had paid for. The law states even in a motel room that they have to legally evict them. I was being told that the soonest we could get them into a program is three weeks. I could fight that out in court. This meant that when the landlord came to throw them out - they just had to refuse to leave along with demanding a legal lock-out notice. Then I could also fight that in court to get those three weeks until we could get them into a program.
You know what she told me? "I don't want to make trouble". I told her I could offer the landlord advertising and a donation receipt for the value of the room for the time she stays there so he's not at a total loss for the time. She refused.
The one sister bailed on me back to the streets because she "didn't want to make trouble" with the landlord. The other one didn't want to go and we've helped her into another program by arranging to get her out of Miami.
What's going on? Why have I gotten these calls this week with no homeless beds available for women in both Miami and now Detroit? Why are two African American women telling me they're afraid to stand up and tell a cop "you touch me I file assault charges?"
I can't help but think Sandra Bland has got these women terrified. I'm terrified. The media has a lot of power. I've watched a lot of Derren Brown videos and I know the power of putting the same images into someone's eyes and I can't help but think we've been seeing a lot of the Sandra Bland's stories.
Where are our hero stories? Why is the media not inspiring us to fight back right now? Why are we talking about fighting sex trafficking when we've got young women being put onto the street - and what do you think is going to happen? That is just the prey that pimps are looking for being cast right into into the streets like shooting fish in a barrel. How much money is being put into fighting trafficking - yet these women are not getting housing?
WTF?
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