Take Back the Land is an American organization based in Miami, Florida, devoted to blocking evictions,[1] and rehousing homeless people in foreclosed houses.
[7] Take Back the Land volunteers break into the houses, clean, paint, and make repairs, change the locks, and help move the homeless families in.
Though the occupations are of contested legality, as of December 2008[update] local police officers were not intervening, judging it to be the responsibility of house owners to protect their property or request assistance.
[4] Max Rameau, the homeless advocate running the program, called it "morally indefensible to have vacant homes sitting there, potentially for years, while you have human beings on the street".
[2] Rameau says that the group only moves families into government- or bank-owned properties, and argues that it is not fair for the banks to be receiving government bailouts while keeping these assets.
[7] According to Rameau, he had approached banks in 2008 with the idea of buying them for a discount price and renting them to homeless people; they seemed interested at first but he says they stopped calling him back after the 2008 federal bailout was announced.
[3] Take Back the Land was originally formed in 2006 as an anti-gentrification organization[4] inspired by the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign in South Africa.