Members of Occupy Seattle occupy ‘abandoned’ building at 23rd and Alder

Members of Occupy Seattle have taken over an empty duplex at 23rd and Alder and plan to occupy it indefinitely, according to the Occupy Seattle website.

Occupy protestors say the house has been abandoned since the previous owner passed away, and that the group debated what to do with the space. Some even suggested “forming a work party to rebuild it for the community.”

According to the King County, the house is owned by Sander-Boman Real Estate Denmark West, who purchased the building in 2006 for $425,000. It was built in 1961 and renovated (at least partially) in 2008. Since then, work has stopped and it has been issued a series of DPD warnings including one noting the property was “open to entry via broken front window & crawl space” and another documenting “junk in yard includes mattresses, electronic equipment, bed frame, carpeting, furniture & other items.”

The house is across the street from Garfield High School.

Last week, two men were arrested as protestors attempted to occupy the Horace Mann school building.

Occupy Seattle is under increasing pressure to find better living arrangements for participants camping on the Seattle Central Community College Campus on Capitol Hill.

From Occupy Seattle:

Independent participants of the Occupy Seattle Movement have decided to indefinitely occupy an abandoned home in the Central District on the corner of 23rd Ave and E. Alder and are currently calling for support.

The occupiers came to the home during their march for the National Day of Action against State Repression of the Occupy Movement called for by the General Assembly in Oakland. They first marched past the juvenile detention center on 12th Ave and then reached the abandoned home.

A neighbor said banks took the home after the previous owner died several years ago and it has been uninhabited since.

Several occupiers in front of the home made speeches. They addressed how predatory lending, rent hikes, property taxes on homes, and police harassment have driven the working and middle class black community from the neighborhood. This has allowed banks, developers and other gentrifiers to move in.

After the speeches an ad-hock assembly decided to occupy the home and brainstormed ideas including forming a work party to rebuild it for the community.

In other Occupy Seattle news, Mark Root-Wiley posted earlier about an Occupy Seattle march down Yesler around 3:30 p.m. Marchers were chanting “Whose streets? Our Streets!”

271 thoughts on “Members of Occupy Seattle occupy ‘abandoned’ building at 23rd and Alder

  1. ….if so they would know that most of the CD, esp that stretch of 23rd is mostly run by gangsters, dealers and theives. I support OWS and love to see someone doing something with that building but get your facts straight about the ‘hood you are occupying. Gentrification may have started, but our little unchecked crime wave is keeping the neighborhood in the gutter.

  2. Another original idea from the neighborhood brain trust. Hey, if it didn’t work in 1970, there’s no reason it won’t work now, huh? And when it doesn’t work, you can always blame it on oppression, or gentrification, or whatever the buzz word du jour is.

    No wonder no one takes this neighborhood seriously.

  3. This is the first cool thing I have seen OS do, hopefully it doesn’t turn to shit like most things hippies touch. However I have a feeling the “anarchist” (I use the term loosely) from autonomia have something to do with this and that it will be doomed to failure.

    BTW squatting is legal until property owner decides he wants the occupants out, the owner must then go through standard eviction procedures. In fact if you do it right, pay unpaid property taxes etc you may be able to legally own the property due to squatting laws that are still on the books.

  4. it was mostly people from the CD and young people who have been active in occupy. The point was to protest foreclosures in the neighborhood and folks not being able to pay their rent in a time of recession.

    And yes, there were some people from what used to be autonomia there. The property assessment says it is owned by some other folks- however it has been abandoned for years! My guess is that they purchased it in order to flip it eventually but since the housing market is down, they are sitting on it..

  5. I drove by earlier today and thought to myself… It is mind-blowing to think that they are truly accomplishing nothing. At least its happening over in the G-h-e-t-t-o (23rd and alder) people up in “New Durban” Union and 26th wouldn’t let that sit stand for two seconds. I’d be performing the “un-occupy” real quick… Those poor neighbors, if it wasnt bad enough living next to a dilapidated eyesore and having the occasional homeless person squatting next to you, now they have chanting idiots preaching anarchy. HA what a sad joke.

  6. Chill..The neighbor told us that she was in foreclosure and that she supported what we were doing. By the way, the houses next door are transitional homeless housing. occupy eviction and foreclosure!

  7. Reading the above comments makes it pretty clear who is invested in this community, and who merely speculates against it. After the sub-prime crisis, average African-American household assets dropped from 1/8 of white family assets, to 1/50 of them. Geography does the work of Jim Crow in our society, and housing policies like redlining, block-busting, and white flight are the noose. What better way to fight the racism of housing American-style than to stand in their god-damn way?

    Occupy to protect! And drop by, we make some bomb-ass muffins.
    Shon

  8. Nonsense. While what you say may make sense in some rust belt dump, or some hellhole in the south, Seattle’s real estate market is entirely different. The CD is valuable land due to its proximity to downtown. People who paid their mortgages on homes purchased in the 50’s – 70’s profited handsomely from their investment. Lower income people who own their homes outright benefit from a range of services, from 50% off utilities and taxes, to free minor home repairs. It’s the newcomers – including the “gentrifiers” – and the renters who are losing their shirts. And even the renters have basic protections.

  9. Don’t be a parrot – THANK YOU! well said. At what point do we gentrifiers quit being gentrifiers? I bought my first house in the CD over 22 years ago. Was I before or during the gentrifying? Or, are these comments all because I am white? I paid a fair price, (to another white person – I might add ) and have worked hard to make my contributions to this neighborhood. But over and over again it is discounted because I am white.
    For 22 years I have worked on my home(s) to keep them up, worked hard on my yards to improve them, shopped in my neighborhood, volunteered in my neighborhood schools and parks, and promoted what a great place this is to live. As have all my neighbors around me. Yet, people like Shon are saying things like “Geography does the work of Jim Crow in our society, and housing policies like redlining, block-busting, and white flight are the noose”.
    Seriously? Shon. Get a life. try to contribute to society positively instead of sitting back and criticizing. You might actually make some friends out there, that don’t look like you, but are doing good things.
    It is these kind of comments that really are making me weary of living here. You take the neighbor out of neighborhood. It makes me sad, because I value community, I value an urban lifestyle, I value neighborhood schools, and I VALUE THIS NEIGHBORHOOD, but obviously I am not valued.

  10. there is some truth to what both coffee cup and parrot man are saying.. I don’t think shon’s intention is write off community members who have contributed to the community in any way. Rather, there are people who see poverty and perceived racism as an expression or excuse for laziness and lack of motivation. this simply isn’t the case.

    the point of taking this house, and any others that may be taken in the future is in response to budget cuts, foreclosures, and shelter closures all of which affect the bottom percentage of seattlites. You are still part of our 99 percent and as long as you are working to make the community a better place then you have our support as well.

  11. My wife and I live very close by. We are youngish, we are white, and we are generally progressive thinkers. We’ve worked hard to attain advanced graduate degrees (and we have significant student loan debt to attest to that). We continue to work hard and maintain what we’ve got, while being smart with our money and putting away what we can. We bought a home in the CD when we moved here from out-of-state three years ago, mostly because it was more affordable, but also because my wife is so close to Swedish Cherry Hill where she works. Our home was built right before we moved here (independent of us) and we are the first owners.

    So are we the bad guys? Are we a part of the colonization of the CD? Or maybe we’re just young people looking to buy their first Seattle home, who came here with no agenda other than to set down some roots (we have two kids now), avoid a long work commute, and live within our means.

    Are we supposed to take our money to Madison Valley because that’s where people like us are supposed to go? Wait a minute…

  12. I think you should stop acting like your being victimized. This take over is about rights for poor people, not some imaginary debate about gentrification in the CD. We aren’t going to reverse gentrification and we aren’t blaming every middle class white or black person that buys a house in the CD. Yes there is some very real history of red lining and segregation in the CD, among other things.. but its not about blaming folks. we are out to put foreclosure, eviction, and homeless shelter closure on the agenda for the city of Seattle. I would hope you and your neighbors can stand behind that.

  13. I’m you, Greg, 15 years down the road…. My husband and I moved here right after college and bought a house about a year and a half later. We chose this neighborhood for a number of reasons. We could afford it, we wanted the walkability and proximity to downtown/Broadway, we could see that the neighborhood was improving (we are at the north border of the CD), we liked the traffic density compared to other neighborhoods (we felt Greenlake/Greenwood was had more cars/driving comparatively)…

    We hadn’t lived in Seattle very long and prior to buying we rented in Squire Park- to be honest we really didn’t know much about the history of the neighborhood at all. We didn’t realize it was supposed to be such a bad place to live… (and I guess thus never found it to be such).

    Are we gentrifiers? I don’t think so. Have we fixed up our house? Indeed we have, but not at all with the intention of simply flipping it. We did it to live here… We’ve been here about 15 years now and have no intentions of leaving (heck, rather than being underwater, we are less than 5 years from paying our loan off and we like it here). Are we white, sure are, but if you look into the history of this house it was built and occupied by a very Norwegian family for many years. I’m not totally clear on some of the intervening time, but when we first looked at it, it was empty – the victim of a would be flipper who ran out of cash (luckily before he did too much damage… it’s a lovely old house), who from what I understand acquired the house when someone died. We never met the seller at all, and couldn’t tell you the race of any of the people after the Norwegian family, but we didn’t snatch this house out from under any family…… This house was just sitting here, having already gone through a few shorter term owners – the last having taken it in a squabble with her boyfriend over a relatively small amount of money she loaned him to rehab it…. Then she didn’t pay the bills… It was just about to be foreclosed on and taken from her. We saved it from a fate like the one the protesters have taken – slowly falling apart, owned by a bank who wouldn’t care.

  14. Your message suffers from too much fragmentation and daffy representation. Look at your house. Is spray painting that eyesore into a *worse* eyesore with messages such as “end the colonization of the CD” and “anarchy!, blah blah” supposed to make someone like me feel comfortable? You put out a look and feel that doubtless has attracted some people even the most accepting among you consider weird.

    Am I with you guys in spirit? Somewhat, I guess. I believe the whole of society is better off the more access the disadvantaged have to education, wealth, and resources. But I’ve never believed that ostentatious ‘protesting’ (and yes, f— the tea-baggers, too) leads to anything other than general public annoyance and little change.

    You want my support? Paint that place. Mow the lawn. Put some flowers in the ground. Replace the windows you and the teenagers before you ruined. Be classy. That’s how you get people like me to listen… and vote.

  15. Also, you need to explain to me what you mean by ending foreclosure and eviction. That just sounds half-assed. If I don’t pay my mortgage, I get foreclosed upon. I knew that when I signed my loan. Are you saying I can stop paying my mortgage and the bank should have no right to kick me out? I can keep my house by doing nothing and expecting the asshole banks to eat it? Because that would be AWESOME.

  16. Funny how we feel we have to explain ourselves to people who would rather spray paint someone else’s house all day rather than work hard enough to one day own and love one of their own.

  17. well if thats your caricature of all of us then we definitely don’t have anything in common. Also, we aren’t asking for a critique of our protesting methods. Voting does very little to change anything, and if it did, it would most certainly be illegal. that said, we have very few avenues to try to affect change and there seems to be a lot of value in direct action (just look the seattle solidarity network or the homeless building occupations in the 90’s)

    We are against foreclosure because many people are getting foreclosed on during a time of recession when many people are unemployed. Its extremely hard to pay a mortgage on unemployment (even max benefits). I realize some people have not been touched by the recession (or at least not yet) however, its important to recognize that sometimes, people just cannot pay the bills. And for this reason there needs to be forgiveness in the economy. As for the weirdos? who cares.. its seattle. thats the thing about social movements- they are comprised of a very broad layer of people usually…

    you don’t need to actively support us or even passively support us- but don’t dog us either.

  18. it sounds like people want to paint the place… we have a bunch of trades people (electrical, drywall, plumbing, ect..) who are up for donating time to finishing the house… but it really depends on what the ownership status of the house is.. ie whether or not the owner has any immediate plans for it. there isnt much of a lawn to mow.

  19. Except, Lucas from Autonomia, this house is NOT in foreclosure! It’s owned by a 72 year old man in New York who has been unable to sell it, owes more than it’s worth, and is sitting on it until he CAN sell it.

    And I’ve lived 1 block away my whole life and have never seen these “CD peeps” before.

  20. we also never said it was foreclosed. the media said that. its abandoned property and has been for quite some time. we don’t support property flipping when homeless shelters are closing and people can’t afford to pay their mortgages.

  21. “we have very few avenues to try to affect change”
    -False. Go to school. Be presentable. Get a job in government, or health care, or put yourself on the board of some forward-thinking company.

    “Voting does very little to change anything, and if it did, it would most certainly be illegal.”
    -I don’t even know what this means. Conspiracy theories are bad for the brain.

    “you don’t need to actively support us or even passively support us- but don’t dog us either.”
    -I’m dry, but I’m trying to help you in my way. The problem with ‘movements’ like yours is that you expect that eventually, someone’s going to flip some switch and everything will be made whole again. You’re trying to make policy changes for MILLIONS and MILLIONS of people. Have you thought through the risks and benefits of the policies you propose? Are you basing your opinions on any sound economic/etc evidence? How do you know what you’re proposing does in the long-term?

    This is a big country, dude. The (non-CD) colonists that set this place up two and a half centuries ago made the government a tangled mess of checks and balances on purpose, so that it didn’t make any big detrimental changes overnight. Yes, that sucks for a lot of people in the short term. But you can’t expect anything more than small incremental changes that add up over time to equal the better society you wish to have. That’s why I and others chide your efforts… it seems like a lot of misguided energy that you could channel into other, more productive, enterprises.

  22. “it really depends on what the ownership status of the house is.. ie whether or not the owner has any immediate plans for it.”
    -What the HELL???!!! NOW you’re worried about the owners’ plans for it???!!!!

  23. you don’t have to agree, but this is whats up. Unemployment is high right now. Foreclosures are up. Services are getting cut. and many people are disillusioned by the traditional processes of change. I could spend all day arguing the history of social change and traditional economics vrs alt econ with you, but it sounds as if you have your mind made up..

  24. yeah.. so? there is no point in keeping it if the owner is going to evict us in a month. But the house has been vacant for over 3 years (at least) and I don’t see why, if there are no plans for it over the next year, two years, whatever, we can’t make improvements on it and put it to community use.

  25. Gregg, I sold my 1896 farm house in the CD because after 20 years on the block, 10 blocks from where I grew up, I was just done, done, done with the 5 felons living on the block making my life intolerable and my kids unsafe. 6 skinny houses replaced it. My 1896 house had been built by the Carsons, a white family seen in the 1930’s assessor pics, and owned by that family for generations, until an Asian family bought it in the 40’s. I bought it from them in 90. I grew up in the CD, where I still live, and I’m 55 years old. The “gentrifier!” chant gets old, but honestly, it’s usually shouted by people like Lucas who believe only the stereotypes about the CD, and have never actually been part of the community here. Instead, they come for a while, rail against their own neighbors, are shocked when their neighbors of all colors reject them, and then they move to Ballard.

    As for the occupiers, I’m with OWS. However, I’m not with people I’ve never seen before occupying a home that is not in foreclosure, and using the “we white folks are here to save the black folks!” babble that was boring in the 70’s, too. Mark my words, they will leave the house worse for wear, with feces, spoiled food, and damage everywhere. That’s what squatters do! Bah. Go occupy a FORECLOSED UPON house in Madison Park! Or Broadmoor! Go crap in the back yard of the 1% and stop claiming to be helping people in the CD when you have proved to be anti- community. Heck, even your website (Lucas) says you are against community, and “up class warefare!” Again, boring. Just as it was in the 70’s.

  26. Let’s see here:
    *politicians seem to be easily ignoring you
    *the big banks are definitely ignoring you
    *thanks to the plutocrats (and Faux News), the movement has now been seen as an unfocused group of generic ragtag lefties
    *the infestation at SCCC has pissed off more people than it’s convinced
    *the “lamestream media” (*cough*cough*) now focuses on Occupy–Police confrontations instead of the real message

    Do you think, just MAYBE, the message might be lost?

    The only way occupying that house will accomplish anything, is if you all clean it up, spruce it up, and make a very visible point. If it ends up being a”crash pad” and party commune, you’re just wasting more of your time and proving nothing.

  27. jeeze, give it a chance.. maybe it will work out. have you thought about going over there and talking to people (the defecating masses of occupy seattle) before you make these assumptions?

    also, class war isn’t boring. its necessary. its convenient for you to say that since your not suffering at the moment.. and maybe weren’t back in the late 60’s/70’s. OS people have a good chant that goes something like this: “we’ll see you when you get laid off!”

  28. yeah jim i agree. and I think thats the intention. the OS camp is a fucking mess to say the least.. the message needs to be put back on point

  29. from one of our people: “I did some more research on title issues, and it possible the legal owner, Denmark V. West, isn’t interested in the property at all. It was going to be sold at foreclosure on 09/11/2009, but that sale never happened. The foreclosure sale was formally cancelled on 09/22/2011. The deed of trust was transferred to Bank of America on 10/24/2011. Not sure what this means in practical terms …”

  30. Coffeecup, if you “have worked hard to make my contributions to this neighborhood,” I’m not sure why you’d be defensive about redlining, white flight, and block-busting. Seems like you’ve been trying to mitigate the effects of them, which (depending what your contributions are) of course I commend. Aren’t you opposed to those policies too, if you find yourself here instead of, say, Issaquah or Ballard? Do you deny they exist, or do you defend them? None of the policies I mentioned have much to do with gentrification, so you seem to be taking swings at ghosts.

    Also strange that Parrot claims that race & real-estate are only tied in Detroit or Birmingham or whatever. Federal stats show that King Co. has the widest racially-indexed income disparity in the country (sourced to fed stats through infobombing.org, sorry for not having a better link on hand.) That has everything to do with access to post-WWII housing booms, which has always been explicitly racialized. Cry me a river about white people taking a hit – again, that’s not what fed statistics show as the people who’ve taken a hit from the sub-prime collapse.

    Coffeecup, as for this: “Get a life. try to contribute to society positively instead of sitting back and criticizing. You might actually make some friends out there, that don’t look like you, but are doing good things.”

    Who even thinks to start a conversation like this? Hello, coffeecup, great to meet you my neighbor as well. This is why I never bother responding to comments and probably won’t again – as far as I’m concerned, coffeecup, you’re a flame-bot, or else haven’t seen sunshine since your “Heavy Metal – The Movie” tapestry fell off the window last year. I’m critical because I’m involved, I’m not sure what I look like but most of my friends don’t look like each other, and I’d claim most of my waking hours are spent, by conservative standards, contributing positively to society. Which, incidentally, doesn’t include trolling.

  31. Protesting ALL foreclosures is nuts. Why would a bank give a loan to someone when there is no recourse if the person decides not to pay the loan back? If you want to protest predatory lending and excessive foreclosures then everyone who is underwater must WALK AWAY. This is the way the system works. This is the other side of mortgage contract. Banks will tighten their lending standards and reduce predatory lending if people walk away from underwater properties, assuming they don’t get more bailouts….

  32. Mr. Shon –
    1. What’s a flame-bot?
    2. I’m not a big fan of heavy metal… sorry to disappoint.
    3. Trolling? Now, just who’s trolling?
    4. Yea, right, I am defending redlining. For sure… NOT.
    5. Blockbusting? The only blockbusting I think is happening is your project on 23rd and alder. OS is effectively doing their own version of blockbusting. Who wants to buy or sell next to that mess? That is certain to lower the value of that block. Be sure to expect cookies delivered from your new neighbors.

    Good luck with that.

  33. This is the most interesting and civil thread I have ever read on any blog given the volatile nature of the topic(s). Well done all.

    Occupying foreclosed homes sounds like a wonderful strategy if done in mass. I can see advantages to targeting higher income neighborhoods but also like the idea of fixing up blighted homes in lower-income neighborhoods. Homes adjacent to foreclosures would benefit greatly either way.

    Will 23rd and Alder have a house warming party? Hope so…

  34. oh really lucascrtr? after rereading this thread, i would say that you are the one who has been ‘dissed.’
    good luck with your protest. you need it.

  35. The thread like most others hear is being heavily censored. Comments that challeng the extreme liberal bias have been deleted. Revisionists that want to paint an endless film victimization over the true picture. Take a look at the “victims” 99% of the time you will find people intimately linked to the cause of the crime.

    For example. There are people in the CD that paid $500,000 for a town house. $800,000 for a small old home. The banks were fools for lending the money. The people were fools for thinking they could afford these things. The government was criminal for taking everyone elses money and giving it to the banks, and yet still letting the banks take the homes. Government is the criminal. The banks should have been a victim of their own mistakes. Instead we are made to pay. Forced to pay at the threat of our livelyhoods by Congress and the President. Let’s take the protest to DC.

  36. If there was a loan against it, the bank has the title. You don’t get the title to your house until you pay it off. Just like your car.

  37. And they have every right to flip it. Why dosn’t Occupy Seattle squat a empty bank and make a statement like they did in London. If the mentality is like lucasctr has shown in previous posts, they should be evicted ASAP. Go make a statement in areas North of the ship canal where the 1% live instead of being a poser here where you know nothing about the neighborhood or it’s history.
    Ohh that’s right, your parents there would object.

  38. So – since the bank owns my car – does that mean that Occupy Seattle anarchists have the right and duty to take my new SUV?

  39. i agree with you yet at the same time people do deserve affordable housing. Unless your a true believer in the free market there is no reason why the cost of a house should be dramatically higher than the average earnings of a working family

  40. Taking the protest to DC is way less effective than just walking away from the loan. Give the banks a dose of their own medicine. You won’t get much relief out of DC– The banks (mostly) didn’t do anything illegal when they loaned stupid people way more than a house was worth, or than they could afford.

    People need to stop paying their mortgages to bring the banks to their knees. Will you lose all your equity? Probably. But that ship has sailed– give it up and start rebuilding.

    My friend did this during a Houston oil bust. He’s an optometrist, and his business failed when everyone stopped spending money on their eyes. He walked away from his mortgage and his two friends lived totally free for 2 years in a beautiful pool home, before the bank finally came for it. The same thing happens now–the banks can’t even keep up with all their foreclosures.

  41. Why dosn’t Occupy Seattle squat a empty bank and make a statement like they did in London. If the mentality is like lucasctr has shown in previous posts, they should be evicted ASAP. Go make a statement in areas North of the ship canal where the 1% live instead of being a poser here where you know nothing about the neighborhood or it’s history.
    Ohh that’s right, your parents who live there would object.

  42. Gentrification and white flight occuring in the same neighborhood at the same time. So – by either comming or going Shon considers you a negative impact. Let’s do what Shon wants us to. What is that Shawn?

  43. Grumbo, this thread is not being censored. Some personal attacks and off-topic, distracting comments have been removed to encourage a productive community conversation and discourage senseless off-topic fighting. This is standard practice, especially on posts with discussions as lively as this one.

  44. I read some of the comments and wonder why some of the posters decided to move here in the first place. You don’t respect the history of the place, or the people who have lived here for years before you decided it was hip to live in the ‘hood.

    Honestly, if you are dealing with everyone with basic respect no matter if they are addicted to crack or a doctor or a single mother with a little kid, you shouldn’t care what people think of your presence in the CD. Everyone will see your earnestness and enfold you. If you coming with a ‘I am here to fix this broken place’, life will be a little difficult for you. In spite of being ignored for a long time, the CD was a place I RETURNED to because it offered what I didn’t feel in Tukwila, Seatac or Des Moines: Community.

    If you are here because you want to build a community, I am so glad you are here. I you want to put up fences and be resentful and hateful, there are other places for you to be.

    BTW, I hope Occupy Seattle stays in that house. I understand the statement they are making and support them.

  45. hey eyes, aren’t you the one who doesn’t think segregation never happened in seattle? here to make some more points about why racism never existed? or how the “color-blind” middle class in seattle never played a role in gentrification? maybe you should be evicted. or better yet, if you get evicted maybe you will understand where the rest of us are coming from.

  46. if you wanna give it to the “occupy seattle anarchists” sure, we’ll take your SUV. but its more likely the repo man is going to get it first. actually what they really need is some drywall and insulation. got some of that?

  47. it doesn’t appear so. it actually appears like you are pretending certain things never happened in seattle. but if you wanna continue this conversation in person, maybe we are just misunderstanding each other. cup of coffee?

  48. no just because someone has the “right” legally to do something doesn’t make it in the interest of the community as a whole. in fact, anti-social behavior like property flipping when other people can’t even afford to keep their homes is extremely immoral and should be illegal.

  49. So this house is owned by a 72 year man in NY who has a relation who lives on Mercer Island. It appears they have a family property investment company who probably have never received a bailout and who does not have much influence over our economy. It is not a publicly traded company, the property is not in foreclosure and they do not owe any taxes on this property. While they have stopped work on this property, this appears to be their only fault. While some might like to claim this is some big statement to “the man”, it sure seems like a free rent opportunity. When the property owners learn of this trespass and call the police, those ‘occupying’ the house may receive another living opportunity with free room and board.

  50. Don’t forget the biggie – the changes to the Community Reinvestment Act in the 90’s. Look it up.

  51. “The rest of us”. You mean you, not others. And let me add delusional and one who can not re-read posts and understand what they say to the list of how you present yourself on this blog. Yep, Grumbo is right, the school systems is failing.

  52. owning upwards of 30 properties in one neighborhood is not something small. Its owned by the man who lives in mercer island. Do you think its ok to have empty housing when three homeless shelters closed down right before winter?

  53. “So – since the bank owns my car – does that mean that Occupy Seattle anarchists have the right and duty to take my new SUV?”

    not if you’re current on your loan and making payments on it.

  54. More importantly, this is what we like to call an “investment” property. It was developed by rich people and was designed to be sold as an investment property to someone who probably would not have lived in it. The Occupy Seattle people are not saving a single person from being foreclosed and evicted from his or her or their primary residence and are, once again, completely aimless, off-point, and lawless. When are the rest of the 99% going to demand that the Occupy movement stop acting irresponsibly in our names?

    Again, I will repeat: This is not a foreclosed home. It was an investment-turned-sour. The plan to develop this property was made during the “real estate bubble” of 2002 to 2008, and no one was evicted or forced to move out because of our current economic crisis. Oh, and did I mention that regardless of ownership or foreclosure status, it is still unlawful to squat and trespass on property in this city, county, state, and country?

    Lawlessness is not the answer. A focused, identifiable, clearly communicated message, however, is. Trust me. I know because I sympathize with the underlying premise of the Occupy movement, but the movement has lost my support.

    HK

  55. If it walks like Autonomia and quacks like Autonomia…

    I know, after you soiled your nest on 24th, you tried to resurrect yourself by piggybacking on the positive reputation of Occupy Seattle. But you’re not Occupy. You’re Autonomia. You take more than you give. You finger-point and name-call more than you pitch in. For all your talk of community, your behavior has been incredibly divisive and anti-community. All your self-congratulatory blah blah blah with the activism buzzwords doesn’t begin give you any cred.

    You can talk on all you want (and you clearly want to keep the spotlight on yourself), but you… are… dismissed. I support Occupy Seattle, but I don’t support you.

  56. renting = housing
    moving in with parents/kids = housing

    If you want to teach banks and speculative builders not to have unethical practices educate yourself and walk away.

    Some nebulous protest of “foreclosures” is way too vague. A mortgage is a contract – there are two sides. When one side does not live up to their side of the contract the other has remedies. That’s the way to do it. But you can’t have your cake and eat it to.

  57. the problem is… you don’t even know me.. but if having your head up your ass makes you happy so be it.. im advocating against foreclosures, not for morons with computers and time on their hands..

    by the way autonomia never took anything away from you or anyone else. it is sheer stupidity to blame a punk youth hangout and activist meeting hall for “taking from the community”

    your almost as bad as the one person on the block on 24th who complained that we, at autonomia, were taking all the parking spots. give me a break, bike riding vegan punk kids taking all the parking??

  58. just for your info:

    me and my daughter didnt throw paint all over that house

    we didn’t write that article about autonomia closing

    and if you stop hiding behind anonymous internet posts, your welcome to come talk shit in person.

    p.s. we really weren’t “running a flophouse for crackwhores” like your idiot neighbor seemed to think.

  59. “it actually appears like you are pretending certain things never happened in seattle. “

    Your use of tense says it all. It’s not 1963 anymore, yet people in “the community” keep playing that record over and over like it’s Leslie Gore’s biggest hit.

    Yes, white flight happened. Yes, redlining was a problem – thirty years ago. Today’s problems are our problems. Stop blaming mom & dad.

  60. So are we the bad guys?

    Yes.

    Are we a part of the colonization of the CD?

    Yes.

    Or maybe we’re just young people looking to buy their first Seattle home, who came here with no agenda other than to set down some roots (we have two kids now), avoid a long work commute, and live within our means.

    You buy. Enough said.

  61. awesome… he has a daughter… this just gets better and better. Because every “bike riding vegan, punk kid” needs a sidekick.
    I wonder if “lucas” is Seattle’s finest Pheonix Jones, they seem to share a lot in common.
    Lucas, fight the good fight brother! when you are done taking on the banks we should combine forces and start a campaign against currency, and protest all things that make us sad like um… working, and paying bills, and contributing to society (and by “society” I simply mean “the man” and everyone else who plays by the rules).
    To all of you who are living in the CD, fixing up your houses, making this place a nicer place to live and residing like normal people, I’m glad you are here. Greg G. Welcome to the neighborhood, obviously it gets weird at times but at the heart of this place you’ll find a lot of people like you, first time home owners (not occupiers), young couples with young kids, or recent college graduates. Lucas… sad man, truly after reading your posts I am more and more thankful for the upbringing I received and the way I was raised, you are obviously of the victim mentality, however it doesn’t always have to be like this, you could work hard, earn something or buy some property you are proud of, make it really nice and do something your daughter would appreciate for years to come.

  62. In which “grow up” is apparently defined as “renounce all opinions that conflict with the politics of lucasctr”.

  63. To be clear and honest. I was hoping for a much faster gentrification process. The CD will be a very nice place to live. Housing prices will rise and those of us who got in as lower middle class earners will live in a nice urban neighborhood. At the rate things are going that could be fifty years from now. Unless the place goes Detroit on us.

    It won’t take much and it won’t take long once if the economy turns back on. Just mowing the other half of the lawns and a little pruning around the derelict homes would start the turn.

    The big hold up is the City fully intends to attract the bottom 5% to the CD. What we need in the CD is less. Less help. Less programs. Less street narrowing. Less busses. We live in the CD you can walk downtown in 15 minutes – Or coast downhill on you bike. City admin – Go somewhere else, we don’t need you. Keep the taxes down and the poor can stay in their homes too. But no. You gotta jack up the tax on the house to help the homeless – great idea! Brilliant! I can afford the exta $1000, but, I know my next door neighbor cannot – he’s headed for the street. His house is paid off, but, he can’t afford the taxes, and he’s a mental case but stable. The city is essentially evicting him with taxes that the rest of us can afford. And he doesn’t want you charity. He wants you to stay the F away.

    And just another $100 dollars for the car tabs. Again, I can afford it. But many of my neighbors can’t or barely can. Oh, but they’ll be able to take the bus now! How kind of you. No reason we should let the low income own a car. They don’t need to get to and from work quickly, to the second job or to meet the kids on the way home from school.

    That $100 bucks can be used to narrow 20th street. For another $500K you can add 200 square feet of grass – just like 18th street. Brilliant! The street seems really calm and better for the enviornment. Would it have been too hard to pave the street? Half a million spent on two blocks and we got 200 square feet of lawn. And don’t say we got ADA curbs – We got brand new yellow ones 4 months before you tore them out and moved them two feet. Brilliant! Please take another $100. (Then borrow $500 to match, I’ll pay you later.)

    Anyway – The folks who shouldn’t be able to afford living here are the drug dealers and theives. There are a whole bunch and more disciples waiting in the wings. A few more patrol cars and less of everything else.

    As for actually abandonned homes like this one. They should be force flipped. Let’s enforce some basic laws on maintaining the homes and business properties. If the owners don’t want to be good nieghbors or are entirely absent – foreclose and get the house on the market to those who do want to be a part.

  64. I have heard that immitation is the best form of flattery. Not in this case. “Lucascrtr” do not copy the language I have used to describe you in pervious posts and apply them to others. Try to be original. Grumbo is right again, a failed school system.

  65. I work my ass off m-f 9-5 making barely over minimum wage. Just because the CD is one of the only areas near my work that I can afford means I am a gentrifier, because i’m not black? Who’s racist now? Maybe I should move somewhere I cant afford and go bankrupt/ruin my life so you can keep a certain area filled with the race you prefer.

  66. Well Lucas I am sure there are more affordable homes elsewhere, why do they have to live here? I had to move from my city where I grew up because it was too expensive and you don’t hear me crying about it. I dealt with it, moved and am fine.

  67. Yep look at the love and care that goes into the neighborhood they “love” so much. Thats how you treat things you love? Trust me I know that not everyone is treating that area like crap but sheesh, at least get rid of the people that are hurting the neighborhood you “love” if you care so much.

  68. It really bothers me when I see “white” in some of these comments. Why should color matter? I see people of all colors in many elite jobs, normal jobs, crappy jobs, what does color matter? You want to live in the CD as prices go up? Get a better job, nothing preventing it but you. FYI I make barely above minimum wage and am struggling in the CD to keep my place, you can bet I am going for a promotion at work which means no partying or anything but focusing on that.

  69. Couldnt agree more with if you care so much about the neighborhood, why destroy it? Its like saying “dont treat us like criminals!” and then do criminal acts. What do you expect them to think. Also good attitude 69love, I bet you have made a huge difference in bettering this issue.

  70. Dont worry, your not alone. We bought here in the South CD because it was what we could afford within an hour drive to our jobs, yes both of us work 9-5 m-f and dont make over $50k combined gross. We are rich white folk, gentrifiers? I dont think so, if anything we have improved the area by pushing out the drug dealers and loosers, not the good hard working people who want to stay here because they really love the area. Work for what you want, even if it is at McDonalds.

  71. lucas, I like your point, I want to live next to Bill Gates for free, why cant I? You say I should move somewhere more affordable? I dont get it, then why must people live in the CD? There is much more affordable housing in Cle Elum, or further away. I say this because if I lost my job you can sure as hell bet I would have to move there, and will if I do loose my job.

  72. I am all for building community here. When ever I say hi to my neighbors who have lived here for 20 years and they sneer at me then walk inside their house, it makes me feel a little bitter, you know?

  73. As someone suggested before how about the OS people clean up this house for all the homeless? Put in new windows, paint it, etc. Work at that oil company thats hiring now, pay for the house, problem solved?

  74. So dropping my kids off at GHS this morning I notice that Lucas’s idea of fixing up the home is spraypainting anarchy symbols all over the outside of it, as well as “decolonize the central district!” There’s something ironic about a bunch of white kids stealing a house in a historically majority black neighborhood (at least in recent history), in protest of white people “colonizing” that neighborhood.

    I guarantee you this house will not be fixed up by OS. It will be stripped of copper and left vandalized. Oh wait, they’ve already vandalized it.

    And as predicted, the PNW Anarchists have co-opted the Occupy Seattle, and Occupy Seattle doesn’t even realize it yet. I wonder if Occupy Seattle will realize it when Lucas and pals bring the heat of the FBI down on them, since Lucas posted previously on this blog that (a) the FBI had taken all his friends’ phones or somesuch, and (b) the anarchist group’s website has statements to the effect of we are not about community, and “up class warfare.” The “decolonize” graffiti by white anarchists reminds of of the Manson family who wanted to turn the races against eachother in order to further their own goals.

  75. Damn straight Adam, well said. Work for your stuff. I knew a guy that picked up cans all day to pay his bills, didnt party, screw around, etc. I have much respect for people like that.

  76. Yep, I would support them if they werent making the neighborhood worse than it already was. Like that will get any attention from those they are trying to reach. How about mixing it up a bit? Go pick up trash and stop tagging something that isnt yours? Maybe one day.

  77. At least Phoenix Jones got himself right up in the thick of the shit and did something about it. I feel for that dude.

  78. they did pick up all the trash, and landscaped the outside, and started painting the outside, and supposedly laying drywall on the inside..

    I am not apart of PNW what the hell are you talking about. Yeah class war is a form of community building, it just so happens to be one that excludes people who are anti-poor and racist.

  79. whats your point. im sorry your against affordable housing. I guess, since you make so little, your really just screwing yourself by taking that position.

  80. i think you just got your feelings hurt because someone said the word “white”. its not personal..

  81. Denmark West and Mona Goldsmith-West (who died quite young and quite suddenly recently) were active contributing members of the Northwest African American Museum. They own the house in question, and Denmark has paid the taxes. The house is not in foreclosure.

  82. this threads starting to read like a tea party convention for upset white people.. or like an ayn rand novel. Im really sorry someone called you “white” and said gentrification in the same sentence. it must be really upsetting to you people that some folks reclaimed an abandoned house that was previously used as a crackhouse and decided to do something with it… who knew the word “decolonize” could be so insulting! might as well just pull grandpas old white sheets out of the attic and go lynch some homeless people in between comments. .im out.

  83. something about how “we aren’t against your politics we are against how your trying to divide the community with your politics”
    or “it not that we are against classwar its that we are for gentrification”

    and then Eyes will make some illiterate comment with lots of spelling mistakes about how I need to go back to school, since I suppose disagreeing with someone makes you uneducated..

    and then some other anonymous yup with little or no social conscious will make some asinine comment about how “insulting it is that you said the word “WHITE” in a sentence and there fore you must obviously be trying to instigate a race war in the CD”

    what a pathetic bunch of pricks.. You hardly represent the CD I know.. but then again most of them don’t have time to sit around all day making anonymous comments about how hurt their feelings are at the use of the word “white”.

  84. It wasn’t a crack house. Where are you getting that? Not according to the community police team it wasnt. Many empty houses in the CD (including mine at one point) get broken in to by crack heads, who are then run out by the police. It’s only the white anarchist “kids” (men mostly in their 20’s) who get special police treatment and aren’t run out.

    And where is this landscaping you speak of? I was just at Ezell’s and I see no landscaping of the almost nonexistent yard. All I see is a ton of graffiti compared to the pic above, which did not have graffiti on Friday.

    The house is not in foreclosure.
    It is owned by African American people.
    What is your point in being there again?

  85. he worked for MTV, owns a 2 million $ home on mercer island, owns numerous other properties in the CD. The house was a crack house at one point according to the neighbors. whats your point?

  86. Sigh. This seemed to be a productive conversation, but took a turn a few hours ago into name-calling and an opportunity to play “I’m less racist than you are”. This is sad because I thought it was an interesting exchange of ideas. Any chance we could get back to the conversation??

    I get what people are saying about being (negatively) called gentrifiers. I’m white, and I’ve lived in the CD for 20+ years. For the most part, it’s been a really positive experience. I actually feel safer here than I do walking in some parts of Capitol Hill. When I moved here, I did sense that long-time African-American residents were occasionally wary of me. However, I decided that it was my job to go out of my way to be friendly (since I was the one moving into their neighborhood). Just a smile and a hello–I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a smile reflected back at me. I’ve had great conversations with neighbors, about how the ‘hood has changed, etc.

    I’m not a pollyanna who thinks that a quick chat will solve all of the woes of the CD–but I do think that we’re all human beings, and every opportunity to engage with one another in a positive way is valuable.

    I would love to learn more from Lucas about how OS plans to improve the occupied home, as well as the neighborhood. I’d also like to know if there are plans to go into really troubled neighborhoods–such as High Point/West Seattle, Rainier Beach, etc. I don’t know a lot about specific neighborhoods and their foreclosure rates, but I can only assume that those are harder-hit areas than the CD. The CD is such a mish-mash of older as well as middle class households–so even with the last decade of predatory lending, I would assume that this area isn’t as hard hit as some. Anyone with more information about foreclosure rates, etc–please feel free to put the info out there because that is what this whole discussion is about.

    Lucas, any chance you could use this occupied home as a clearinghouse for local folk affected by predatory lending/foreclosures? I could see it as a fantastic place to set up a full-service center for loan assistance, social workers, food bank, etc–all volunteer, of course. This is such a central location that you all should take advantage of it and do some outreach to pull locals in. Too bad it isn’t the good ol’ days when you could set up a free medical clinic anywhere–because I’d be willing to pitch in with my medical background.

  87. “decolonize the central district!” ??!!??
    The Duwamish Indian Nation has had this land as their home for nearly 10,000 years before European settlement removed it. The 1864 treaty allows for the hunting and fishing of this land that all of you are now living on, as their usual and accustom hunting and fishing area. This was upheld in a Federal Court Decision by Judge Bolt (the Bolt Decision). As of late the tribes under this treaty are challenging this treaty as a breach of contract due to the poisioning of the waters that impact fishing and that housing is interfering with hunting areas.
    So before mouthing off about “decolonize the central district!” you need to realize that you European, African, Asian and Hispanic are colonials that could be moved on any day, this is NOT YOUR CD but the home of indigenious nations that have claim to it returning to their ownership under Federal Law. So lucascrtr and the rest of the posers that pretend to speak for the area, perhaps you should go back to Europe or where ever, this is not your “hood”!

  88. illiterate???
    Wow I guess the comments about Lucas’s bad or non-existant education must be finally hitting home to him. At least he is making some attempt at forming some original thoughts, but still very primative and with very poor syntax.

  89. krikky123: the only reason I am commenting so much on this thread is that I am in Pre Med right now and have time to sit around and toss insults in between bouts of org chem and bio. I am not as involved due to being a full time single father and the pre med coursework (robbed of my social life!). From what I got from the people involved, its not clear if Umoja is going to take direction of this or if it is going to stay an “occupy thing” but I did hear some talk of folks wanting to make it a focal point for building community in the CD. The inside is in remarkably good shape and hasn’t been stripped. It wouldn’t take much to put insulation up, dry wall, and finish setting the floors.. luckily there are a lot of people from the trades involved..

    I can direct you to some close friends of mine who are more involved if you would like to check it out. The intention here was not to put ‘all white people’ in check as so called gentrifiers but instead to recognize the cultural legacy of the CD, the hits against working and poor people sustained during this recession, and to build community. With housing justice particularly in mind. That’s actually a really great idea- turning it into a clearinghouse against predatory lending.

  90. i might add that it was “hip hop occupies” and “rise and decolonize” that came up with that slogan, not OS.. i like it..

  91. eyes, your nothing but a chickenshit hiding behind a keyboard. won’t put your real name down, won’t put your face out in public. you know full well a conversation about this between you and I and anyone else on this article would never grow to be this aggressive if it weren’t for anonymity. If you really gave a FUCK about ANYTHING AT ALL you would put your face out there and say what you have to say in person.

  92. I’m sorry but I have a hard time giving this group credit or trusting anything they do. Omari lost me when I personally saw him assault the mayor with that bullhorn some ten years ago. His some seems like just a younger version of the same. I admit to judging without knowing him personally.

  93. You have now removed all doubt, you are certifiable. You not only do not know what you are talking about, your statement has insulted native americans, their culture and spirits. You know nothing, about anything. The former “Charlie Manson” remark someone made earlier is spot on.

  94. 1. We have a community center ONE BLOCK AWAY. Been there? It’s open to all.
    2. I have lived her 36 years, this was NEVER a crack house.
    3. Stop lying.

  95. why do people buy houses: to have homes to live in. What is an empty a house: a home that could have a family in it. what is foreclosure: when someone is kicked out of their home by a bank for not being able to pay their mortgage. seems pretty self-explanatory to me- do you not see the correlation?

  96. After seeing them set this up, I was curious and open to their intent. After reading lucascrtr’s lame justifications, ad hominem attacks and general belligerence, I clearly don’t want him as a neighbor. Why would I want to get to know you if you have already made up your mind on me (“white sheets out of the attic”, really?)?

    To file a complaint:

    http://web1.seattle.gov/dpd/complaintform/

  97. I might have missed part of this thread so help me out. Was the ownership in sort of confused limbo or is this just a regular duplex that is in the state of renovation and taking what some consider too long to finish. It is just regular private propery that some people decided to break into and squat in? I dont get the talk of having “tradesman” willing to fix it up. Is there some sort of agreement in place with the legal owner to lease it and fix it up or it just crazy talk?

  98. ian and all, why bother. This guy has taken over the whole conversation, there really is no use answering. There is no conversation, no dialogue just ranting with from an empty mind. He claims he represents persons or any group you present. Either he can’t afford his meds or he needs help in some way. Do not feed it. The remark on native americans was my last straw. Time to move on and let karma deal with it.

  99. The legal owner is not in foreclosure and is up to date on his taxes. His wife died young and suddenly not too long ago. I imagine the housing market has made it pretty impossible to sell at the moment, and improvements were halted, as they often are no doubt for cash flow reasons. There is no information that he isn’t going to finish renovating his investment. Oh, and he’s a recognized donor to the African American Museum. First OS was saying the house was in foreclosure, as was Lucas. Then they said it was owned by an out of state investment firm, which it isn’t. Sounds like breaking and entering to me. And just drive by if you want to see what their “tradesmen” have already done with graffitti on the outside. They’ve also destroyed the majority of the windows on 2 sides of the house since Saturday.

  100. Hey Lucas-

    Have you noticed that so many of the conversations you’re involved in here turn antagonistic and ugly? I’m sure you have. It’s a drag, because you have lots of thinking behind your actions, and you’ve obviously spent some time building a consistent historical/political theory to support your vision of a just society. We all ought to think that much about the kind of world we want to live in.

    But here’s the deal: you just piss people off!

    Here are two (equally likely) possibilities for why that happens:

    1. People are scared of a message that implicates them in injustice. They’re not ready to hear that they might be culpable, in some way, for bad news.
    2. You turn pretty quickly from argument–reasoned, thoughtful, historical–to invective and ad hominem, responding to attacks in kind. You insult folks who might end up being your allies, if not active participants in your cause, people who are watching this argument unfold, maybe silently. You’re sloppy with facts and paint with a a too-broad brush. Your message obscures your ideas.

    All successful social movements have good ideas behind them, and they *do* end up pissing people off, for sure, and often for good reason. But I think you’re missing the opportunity to convert a ton of potential allies to your side, people who have motivation, people who care about social justice, people who stay at home (or behind their keyboards) instead of coming out to work with you for a better society.

    Consider it, please.

  101. Lucas,

    Good luck on the pre-med. I use to be an anarchist before I went into the medical profession. You are going to learn a lot when you finally get to do your ER rotation, and I have a feeling that you as an intelligent person will changer ideas you have about the world. I also warn you about your “anarchist” comrades, the majority of them are incapable, I have a feeling that as most anarchist they are incapable of doing most work beyond spreading their half baked propaganda, Likewise those who you claim to be “helping” will not be quick to return the favor. They are dragging you down with them. That is the socialist ideal, drag everyone down to the same shitty level.
    Stay in school, work hard, and most importantly do it for yourself, because no one else is going to help you, especially those who claim to be your political allies. I wish I hadent wasted years of my life, I have been personally fucked far more times by so called “revolutionaries” than I have by cops or capitalist.

  102. i hear ya, but the only problem is: i didn’t start the flame war. And I am not about to shut my mouth from people who won’t even bother to sign their real name to an internet post. You know, as do most people, that conversations like this in person, especially in seattle, are much more civil. I think the best approach to take as far as this house goes is to hold a neighborhood forum and let people weigh in, in person on how and what they would like to see.

  103. especially when I have people challenging my age, responsibilities, race, class, parenting abilities, employment/school status without even knowing who I am because they disagree with the politics I present. On top of that, some of these folks are also trying to link me to random vandalism in the neighborhood.

    bottom line, internet flame wars don’t really count for conversation. The same thing happened at Autonomia (would be radical youth hang-out and community center). local people most of who remained unknown or refused to have a conversation in person went on their merry way filing complaints against autonomia, talking shit over the internet,ect ect.. The people that did come over and talk, yeah, we had our disagreements, but it was a different conversation and we all respected them.

  104. Lucascrtr, you have yet to sign your name on any of these posts. What’s your last name? Let’s practice what we preach, ok?

    Signed-
    James Miller
    22nd Ave.

  105. ” especially when I have people challenging my age, responsibilities, race, class, parenting abilities, employment/school status without even knowing who I am”

  106. How is it that this bile by Lucas stands and my bile is some how more offensive? My racist barbs are kind of a joke and an honest exposure of self. Lucas is a serious threat to humanity. He’s an unhinged madman about to go postal. Certainly not a single father, med student, have native american poet. He’s a Stalinist crack head and gets to go on babling baby thoughts. I guess it is more helpful to my cause to see his unglued print standing there with limited back lash. But jeeeeez! Really – am I more offensive than Lucas? Grumbo – It’s a joke. Rambo – Grumbo.

  107. This thread, which has surpassed 150 comments at this point, has likely surpassed its usefulness. I have relaxed on moderating in lieu of doing other work. But it was a fascinating conversation, everyone, before it turned too sour. Thanks everyone!

  108. I remember thinking I was smart and not being given a fair shot. That all the good stuff was possesed by others and the good life had been claimed a generation or two before. That with a little help I could excel.

    Then somehow I got kinda mad and focussed working harder than everyone else. Learning more. Doing more. Contributing more. And suddenly I was getting somewhere. Kinda later because of all the drinking and smoking. But off the ground and flying.

    And then I really started giving back. Restoring streams. Helping disaster victims. Mentoring my troubled neighbors and relatives. And I notice – the more I helped the less they did for themselves. The more the expected even more. Like my dog. Give him a treat and he learns quickly how to ask for more. Except he works really hard to figure out how to get a treat. So hard he gets lots of them. He”l try for 30 minutes to figure out what is is that gets the treet. Stange though about the people – They just want to know why I don’t give them more. Even the volunteer organizations – Well sure, you’ve contributed twenty hours a week, personal funds, attended training, lifted the heavy weight – but we need more. Always more. (and never a cute trick even.

    And then your realize – I can’t do it for them. They have to take that anger and focus it on the race. It’s and inate race – the race to survive. Laying around wondering when somebody is going to give you the next treat. And, like my dog. If I leave a loaf of bread on the counter he steals it. Actually he is pretty good – he usually only steals from me when he expeced a nice hike but got left home when I worked a few hours on Saterday. But he knows he stole and tries to appologize at the door before I find out.

    But your not my dog! I don’t control your live. I didn’t resuce you from certain death at the poound. You’re supposed to be men and womem working hard to acheive. Not just stealing and begging for hand outs. It isn’t cute. Especially not with ratty dreads and failure to shower. i know it is cold, but, I’ve been known to wash up in the lake when neccessary.

    If Lucas really is a med student – great. Good job. You’ll make is somewhere. But that is not the core of the anarchist movement.

  109. Grumbo, Ayn Rand would be so proud that gave up that bullshit and started focusing on yourself. I know how it feels to have so much knowledge and skill only to have people leach it from you. You did so much work on those streams, and what did the do for you? NOTHING!

    Now with what you’ve gained you can school all of these suckers like a 50 year old father. Get a job! Cut your hair! Be presentable. Our new Native American neighbor Lucas (who decided to leave the rez) should absorb your advice. How else will he have success?

    You go boy.

  110. did you even see the video? i guess if you really cared just a little when folks say “decolonize” please do your homework/research before you start a political debate based on defending your status quo…have you notice your privilege and class standing before speaking or typing ridiculous comments about OS?
    before this turns into another long thread about this and that if the CD means anything to you please consider that we are part of this community, neighbors, friends and families lets built together for a decolonize CD not another gentrified neighborhood that being said i would like to ask:
    do you know the folks involved with house occupation? i suggest you stop by and talk to the folks involved. you will find out its not the autonomia collective and quickly learn its a diverse group of people with diverse ideas and btw not all are anarchists

  111. I think Yall are just a bunch of rats looking for a bunch of cheese causing trouble just to do so I would have peppered all Yall just that 84 year old women and wouldn’t say sorry like the bitch as .mayor you break the law or rules you get what’s filming to you

  112. Community forum??!!?? He still does not get it, it is not his property, it is owned by someone else and being there is CRIMINAL TRESSPASS, A FELONY.
    “your still a chickenshit and have no clue what the fuck your talking about”. This quote sum it all up !

  113. thats what the neighbors said in both houses next door.. i think they would know better than you..

  114. I don’t think its worth talking to these people. It’s impossible to have an open and honest conversation, their minds are closed to the possibilities that maybe their worldview isn’t 100% exactly correct.

    I hate it when I see kids who read one-too-many account of Abbie Hoffman and thought they too wanted to “fight the inequities of the modern world.” Guys, they’re not just neo-Yippies. They honestly have no idea how the world works, and are more interested in the theater as optics of their performance as well as “lifting the wool off the world’s eyes” and proving they are correct than actually affecting long-lasting positive change in America.

    Someone asked earlier: have these people thought through the implications of what they are saying? Have they considered the world is a complicated place? Of course not. Because it just FEELS good to say, “well, all those people who can’t pay their bills? That should not happen!” In a way it’s cute, I mean it’s a very honorable idea. But let’s here their ACTUAL policy proposal for how we do it? Don’t give me a bunch of “well it’s not right for banks to do X…”

    I want meat and potatoes, common sense ideas here. And this is where these people always fall flat, when the conversation turns from a visceral, emotional dialog to one of practical, step 1, 2 and 3 action.

  115. Housing is a right? SWEEEEEET!!

    Hey everyone, Lucas is giving us houses. Where do I get in line for one of those? Btw, who’s paying for these houses, should we just out them on OWS’s tab?

    Wait a minute…. When all these people stop paying their loans, aren’t all the banks entirely screwed? Won’t they start failing? Wait. Won’t that cause a tidal wave of economic crisis in America that will hurt everyone on the economy causing a Great Recession…? Why does that sound so familiar?

    Lucas is not intelligent.

  116. I love how “this conversation isn’t about gentrification” yet every 5th post Lucas brings up gentrification.

    By the way, there is nothing wrong with gentrification.

  117. Lucas is confused. He doesn’t understand the simple economic fundamental that: if you can’t afford it, get something cheaper, which is why he didnt get the Bill Gates joke.

    Lucas has a very confusing precept: That people have a right to live wherever they want, regardless of whether or not they can afford it. Regardless of whether or not there is more affordable housing relatively closely by. I guess it’s the ” dibs on this spot” economic philosophy? Maybe we should call it Licas’ Law.

    Anyway, I’m off to Beverly Hills to buy a mansion I can’t afford. With any luck, Lucas’ Law will be passed and I can keep the property and everyone else will foot the bill :)

  118. Honestly, what are you even talking about? Every single post has been extremely explicit: People have moved to the CD because of affordable homes where they can settle down and build a family and contribute to their community.

    How are you seriously chiding the participants of this conversation, who have planted a stake and tethered their lives to this community? You want to talk about not respecting “the history” of the community. BS.

    1) How do you even presume to know this, in any way shape or form. I flat out want an answer. You can’t just put words in people’s mouthes because it fits your preconceived notions. Ignorance.

    2) Again, more ignorant, unintelligent assumptions. “Hip to live in the ‘hood”. Wow. I wonder if this is some kind of projection of values on your part, as of affect and shallow externalities are all that matter. Yes, buddy, these people are blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars because they thought “damn, how cool will I look now. My friends can eat it”

  119. 3) “Respecting the history of the place”, which history? What have they disrespected? Please explain this vague barb. What do I think it means? I think it’s code for “you don’t respect the black culture here” which. I would love to be wrong, but I can’t imagine any other way to read it. CD’s history is of diversity. It’s an amazing insult to me that you have basically painted any of the above posters who have settled their loves in the CD with the taint of racism, set because they are white and moving into the CD. How’s that for keeping an open mind, huh.

  120. @ 69

    Thanks for exposing yourself and those you agree with for what you are.

    What are you exactly?

    Radicals? No, there is nothing radical or novel about your stale ideas.
    Anarchists? No, because putting a formal doctrine around your thoughts is far too forgiving.
    Marxists? Possibly, not that you’d really understand it.

    I have it: children. Because you throw tantrums to get attention and love in a world you couldnt possibly hope to understand. Don’t worry, some day, some of you will actually grow up… When you’re 50. Unfortunately, most of you won’t. Too bad, but that’s the harsh reality of humanity.

  121. … Ugh.. Psst… Lucas: you do realize you’re posting anonomously and have yourself responded to about 20 posts on a computer. So I guess who has their head where?

    And by the way, hilarious that as soon as someone calls you out all pretense of virtue and “community goes by the way side and it’s “get your head out of your ass” to someone whooped in the CD. Real nice, kid. This guy must have struck a vein. Good to know tho.

  122. Let’s occupy Lucas’ apartment. That spot could REALLY use a community center. I know Lucas has a lease on it, but the greater good is really served by taking it away from him.

    Cool by you, Lucas?

  123. Thanks for the video. So basically decolonization means:

    1) stop the white Europeans from moving into our neighborhoods. Because we’re african and latin racists.
    2) get the police out of our neighborhoods. Because all police are a tool of white people and bankers designed to enforce gentrification or “neo-colonization”. And because “F the police”, of course.
    3) End capitalism and assist “it’s inevitable” demise.
    4) all white Americans should be shamed for taking land away from Native Amercans and because of slavery a few hundred years ago.

    So yah. Basically these guys are a bunch of racist anarcho-communists. I dont mean that in a derrogatory sense necessarily, i mean that explicitly literally descriptive sense. In the video they talk about preparing for the anarchy that they say is coming when the entire capitalist economic system in America completely collapses. They talk about keeping all white people and police out of their neighborhoods. They talk about a system of repression against all non Europoean/White colonists.

    So these are some of the ideals that Lucas apparently believes in. I wish this was spelled out in his first comment. I doubt anyone would have listened to a single word he’d said after seeing this insane video.

    This video frankly disgusts me. I’d like to tell each of these a-holes to occupy an f’ing job and do something with your life other than spew racist and cliche 70’s polspeak. Keep more police out of poor and struggling neighborhoods? How about getting parents to occupy their kids lives. How about creating an environment of upward social mobility in their own homes and communities. How about, instead of being 35 year old below average rappers/singers, they contribute -something- of actual value to society.

  124. “Basically these guys are a bunch of racist anarcho-communists” . your cracking me up blake

    “so.. what do you believe in??” “oh, ya know… I’m a racist anarcho-communist, I believe in communism for racists”. hehe…

  125. While I’m sure some people have good intentions, as a black woman who grew up in the CD and raised my son there, I can’t help but wonder if a large group of black folks occupied an abandoned home in all white area on an all white block, what the response of the police would be…If anything, this action of taking over this house which is actually owned by someone, shows the power of white privilege.

    Just because some white people are experiencing police brutality at the Occupy protest does not compare to the threat of police violence we as people of color experience every day in this city where we are disproportionately pulled over, beaten, harassed, and killed by police.

  126. your right amanda. completely right. that said, the occupation was supposed to be community led ie folks of color from the neighborhood who have been active in community struggles. If the occupation is no longer being led by the community and instead led by a handful of white faces from Occupy then maybe the house should be unoccupied. irregardless, the political point to be made around this occupation was “stop foreclosures, stop budget cuts to homeless services and low income housing services”. whether or not that message was relayed I can’t say.. maybe they will do better on their next attempt of occupying at clarifying these points..

  127. Why occupy a house in one of the areas of the city that is struggling and potentially lower property values (who would want to move in next to a house used as an ongoing base for protesters – an abandoned home in this case is probably better for property values) for the surrounding homeowners who are probably underwater and barely holding on to their homes? If they really wanted to make a point they should have chosen a home that was recently foreclosed on by a major bank in a neighborhood where the owners could absorb a decline in their home values (i.e. one of the 1% neighborhoods). Instead they directed their protest at the 99%ers who are living in the neighborhood. Seems a little backward. The 1%ers were let off the hook in this case – it’s in a neighborhood they don’t care about and can stay away from. Whoever is directing these protest decisions needs a little more direction on effectiveness – and caring (why would you put more burden on a neighborhood struggling to survive). If you really care about the 99% and want to make a statement, fix the house to where it is better off than you found it and go and find a home that will impact the 1%. Let the 99% (or in this case the 100%) in the CD off the hook. Take your fight to the source, not the outcome.

  128. So, now that Lucas has suggested that ‘maybe the house should be unoccupied’ because Occupy has lost its way, who is going to clean up the mess? What about owners who were not doing anything wrong, weren’t in foreclosure, and weren’t using it as a crack house and yet they are responsible to pay the bill? What about the neighbors who have to drive by and see the eyesore everyday knowing full well this divisive protest caused more harm than good in the CD? Isn’t this now more of a blight on the community that it was?
    What if Occupy Seattle and Lucas and his Autonomia followers actually made things right by cleaning up their mess, making it look less like a war zone? Maybe that would inspire others who don’t normally to take action and have pride in their own places. Rather than decrease the value of the area, maybe they could actually add value to the area.
    Maybe…

  129. my thoughts exactly. as I said above (and for some reason it appears in the wrong order), but I’ll say it again in less words:
    What now?

    Here’s a scenario. The owners of the property sue the city for not protecting their property, and allowing occupiers to trash it. This will cost $ and time. And how does the city pay for litigation? By raising taxes. So, somehow more taxes are raised, to foot the bill, to clean up the mess the Occupiers made, all the while raising the taxes on the poor who least can afford to pay extra taxes.

    Nice job guys. Happy Thanksgiving.

  130. Because if you care about your property values you’re a gentrifying, house flipping douchebag, per Lucas.

  131. if the homeless population is somewhere between 6000 and 8000 people in seattle, eviction rates and foreclosures are up due to high unemployment (set at 9 percent give or take, but more likely closer to 15 or 16 percent due to the way the statistics are collected by BLS) then yes, it does make you a heartless douchebag to own multiple properties some which have been vacant for years just for the purpose of flipping them to make more profit. not all flipping is bad. owning nice things is not immoral. withholding resources that could be used for the benefit of the poor during a major recession is immoral.

    CD neighbor, I understand that it scares you that you might be implicated in the poverty of people less well off than you, but really, i don’t care if you feel guilty or not. Perhaps writing inane and poorly thought out comments takes the edge off for you. Maybe you like blaming me because I put my name down on comments concerning Autonomia that did not share any political unity with your own. Irregardless, thats not the issue here. stop derailing the conversation. I challenge you to reexamine your position in this economy both politically and economically and do what you can to help less fortunate people than you through this tough recession.

  132. you should really disconnect my name from these folks. I’ve been there twice. sharing ‘some’ political opinions with a group of people is not synonymous with “being the same people”. Rather, if you have suggestions for them, go in person and present them.

  133. For additional context, I live in the CD in a townhome that we bought at the height of the market in December 2007. It is very underwater. If we needed to move for a new job, we couldn’t, because we couldn’t afford the loss. I have voted to support every tax increase related to providing homeless shelters/housing/support and school levies. If our property values go down further we are not only stuck in our home, but if we lose our jobs and can’t move for new ones we would potentially lose our house. Additionally, even though I don’t like it, with higher property values, comes higher property taxes that support those social programs, so maintaining higher values serves the greater community.

    We both have master’s degrees and I have more than $40,000 in student loan debt, because I had to pay my own way through school, but we still recognize we are fortunate to have jobs and work hard to give back. We donate both time and money to several local and national organizations – including Habitat for Humanity.

    We moved our accounts from Chase after they stole WaMu for pennies on the dollar and were bailed out and then sent out letters saying they would charge fees just for having a checking account. We were told we wouldn’t be charged the fees because of our account balances, but I insisted we move our money to BECU on principal – I can’t support an institution that charges customers who can’t afford it and waives the fees for those who can. That was in January, long before this little movement realized what was going on and set up “Bank Transfer Day”.

    We are also in the final stages (days away) of getting licensed to be foster parents to provide housing to children in need. We have been working to get trained and licensed since April and we are doing it from a volunteer perspective – not for money.

    So, it is with all of that context in mind when I say, I support people’s right to organize, protest, and make their causes known, but the CD is not the target of the Occupy Seattle movement. The people in the CD are the ones the Occupy movement are supposedly fighting for, so get over your ego trip of being self-righteous and protesting just to protest. It is obvious from the sheer number of cynical responses in this thread that several of you get a buzz from pushing your points of view. It obviously makes you feel powerful and self-important and if you were truly introspective, you could spend some time and admit that to yourselves.

    If you are truly for the 99%, direct your need for that power and attention at your target, not at the groups of people who are struggling to stay in their homes, keep their jobs,pay taxes and volunteer/donate to support people like you. The 1% live in Medina, not the CD. Commonsense tells you that. My guesses why you are not there is that you are all talk and you are afraid of taking your message to those who might have you arrested for trespassing in their neighborhood and you don’t want that on your records… you just want the attention.

    We are the 99%
    I work hard, I give back, and I respect that my hardworking neighbors are trying to do the same. Our taxes had to go to bail-out the large corporations and we have to go to work each day just to stay in our homes. The occupation of this house is a rude F-U to the people of neighborhood it stands in. You are blatantly attacking the 99% who live here. Get a clue – we’re on your side morons, stop harassing us and having a negative impact on our ability to remain in our homes, unless you have now decided that you are against the 99% and for the 1%. It’s enough to make me hope the movement fizzles with the winter weather.

  134. Lucas, I’ve been laid off 4 times, had to change job fields repeatedly, each time starting again at the bottom, taking huge pay cuts. I’ve been close to bankruptcy and, like everyone else, am 1 paycheck from disaster. I have no guilt about not helping the poor. I am the poor.

    Just because the comment was deleted don’t think we don’t all know your history. You’re not a crusader for the poor. You victimize your neighbors when they ask you to be quiet, nuff said. Shame on you.

  135. Lucas Carter – you flat out lie.
    You are/were associated with Autonomia, and more than sharing a couple of political views. If I google your name and add Autonomia in the same search you are right there at the top of the page as THE contact person of an Autonomia event and Autonomiaseattle.org!!!

    Is there another Lucas Carter out there that, ironically, spews out the same anarchist views as you?

    You say you are in pre med. If you truly want to become a doctor, I would suggest you clean up your image a bit. Its all out there on the internet and anyone wanting to find it can in about 2 seconds. This stuff doesn’t look good on an application for med school, or a job or anything.

    Don’t forget: The internet is written in indelible ink.

  136. if you don’t get it.. i don’t know what to tell you.. other than that its hella funny!

  137. yeah.. white privilege.. Its lame that OS is using its white privilege like that.. but what’s lamer is the rich white (non-conscious) people in the CD using their white privilege and monetary weight to push poor and working class people out of Seattle proper.

    not all rich white people are like that. some people side with seattle’s working and poor people and make active contributions to the community. But many are. as evidenced by the posts on this blog.

  138. you enjoy in engaging in masochistic behavior towards yourself? Because if everything you just said is true- then why bother worrying about what a dozen people do at an abandoned house that is clearly not drug activity? why don’t you go take your “poverty” to the banks and the people responsible for causing mass employment as it stands now? instead your happier to be a divisive prick.

    Your comment about my “criminal history” was insanely stupid. As i responded below yours, I have never been convicted of ANYTHING. don’t tell me about my “history” when your so full of shit you won’t even put your real name or history down yourself. your content to talk shit and run your mouth while attacking potentially progressive movements. And to make an equally arrogant assertion that the comments on the blog/newssource somehow equal the opinions and desires of everyone in the central district is straight chauvinistic bullshit. you know it. I know it. I’ve been engaged in tenant rights organizing and workers rights organizing off and on and I will tell you straight up that many of our fights (the people that called us up) came from the CD or south seattle. Did they parrot your idiotic and ill informed opinions or those of anyone else on this blog? no. will they? no. most people don’t have time to sit around on the fucking computer typing comment after comment of pure flaming garbage. Me? i’ve got time right now. After being laid off for a year and a half with no prospects of finding another job in my trade, i went back to school. so save your fucking lectures about how I should do this, or do that, or whatever the “milton friendmen” advice of the day is.

    Honestly, I’ve done more in the course of my organizing to help poor and working people than you will ever do in your life. the shames on you, you worthless piece of shit.

  139. oh thats right, my neighbors feel REALLLLY victimized by my comments on a fucking blog. what a clueless hack you are.

  140. if you want to keep talking shit, the option is open to put your name down, or send me an email, and we can talk in person. you can talk all the shit you want in person.

    oh wait, thats right, your afraid my daughter is going to throw paint at your house, desecrate your grandma’s rocker, and beat your dog. because apparently, we are “ANARCHISTS”. big scary fucking ANARCHISTS! I never even said I was an “anarchist” what the fuck are you talking about.

  141. I never said I wasn’t associated with autonomia. we held numerous events there and I ran several myself. Actually, many people ran events there. Autonomia was a really good thing for young people. But how the fuck would you know that… oh, right, you wouldn’t. Find a quote online where I claim Im an anarchist. go ahead. Specifically your blurry comment claimed that I and “autonomia crowd” were responsible for the housing occupation. simply not true. get your facts straight and stop lecturing me about “clean image”.

  142. It’s real and it’s happening. And has been.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHj5_0lRz3E

    And it is “hip to live” here now. Otherwise, why else would people start referring to the area of 23rd + Union as “Lower Capitol Hill” ?? I’ve heard it thrown around quite a lot lately.

    To “clean” an image? To draw in a certain demographic and push out others?

    Makes you wonder.

  143. Really? That’s the video you link to, to promote decolonization and push back against what you are calling gentrification?

    Because in that video, i see an article where neighbors are complaining against SHOOTINGS and DRUG DEALS. Someone was actually SHOT IN THIS RESTAURANT IN JUNE. If you’re telling me that “respecting the history of the CD” means preserving and even promoting SHOOTINGS and DRUG DEALS…. Well then you’re just flat out an idiot and you don’t deserve to be in this conversation.

    Neighborhoods change. Rich neighborhoods become poor. Poor neighborhoods have influxes of money. The world is full of economic cycles and cycles of human migration.

  144. “CD neighbor, I understand that it scares you that you might be implicated in the poverty of people less well off than you, but really, i don’t care if you feel guilty or not.”

    Lucas: This is one of the comments I have been waiting for, and it really shows your underlying worldview. You think that white people are to blame for the poverty of people of color.

  145. Why is anyone giving this “lucas” guy any cred. by replying to him. Yes, I googled him and there is nothing in his background that warrents any attention to his views or lack of coherent original ideas. He also has had run ins with the Police other than the obvious politically fueled ones. This is a delusional power trip your feeding. If you look him up he has “probelms” why support it?

  146. “why don’t you go take your “poverty” to the banks and the people responsible for causing mass employment as it stands now?”

    Because some people in this world have a sense of pride and personal fucking responsibility!!! Unlike people like you. “Oh man, it’s the government, they’re to blame for every problem in the world. Why don’t people see that??”

    You, Lucas, have something that we in psychology call an external locus of control. Everything is controlled by someone else, no action we as individuals take can change anything, because The Man and his Cronies control it all. Yah right buddy.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

  147. This is wonderfully productive. Lucas is helping to drive the neighborhood value to a new low. I will be able to buy more cheap houses and turn them into townhouses to sell to young urban professionals as I have been doing for the last 15 years. Lucas, the harder you try – the easier it is for me. Stop fighting so hard. Come on over for a glass of Cool Aid. It’s alot better than the vinegar you’ve been drinking.

  148. From: Ted Howard II
    Date: Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 4:30 PM
    Subject: Alt group close to GHS campus

    Garfield Families – Garfield high school wanted to make you aware of a nationwide group – Occupy Seattle that is currently residing close to the school campus. They are living in an abandoned building that is on 23rd Avenue. The building is in the 300 block just south of 313 23rd Avenue. Occupy Seattle recently tried to hand out pamphlets and recruit members on the high school campus. Security and police asked the group to leave. Garfield high school is working with the Seattle Police Department to make sure that the group is not allowed to come on campus and promote their ideas. We wanted families to be aware of the group’s presence close to the school campus. Sincerely, Ted Howard – Principal at Garfield High School

  149. Wow! That was highly un-intersting. More disjointed ideas on how to get nowhere. Doing nothing would be more produtive.

  150. Lucas, every time you use the non-word “irregardless” a rich white bastard gets another obscene bonus. Stop it, for the love of all that is holy.

  151. Blake,

    Gentrification is hard to understand. As are are larger issues and structures that make life the way it is — power and privilege are concepts many of us shy away from.

    In stead of simply stating, “Neighborhoods change. Rich neighborhoods become poor. Poor neighborhoods have influxes of money. The world is full of economic cycles and cycles of human migration” you should ask yourself why and challenge yourself.

    And if you bother responding to this, don’t keep it respectful and don’t feel the need to be defensive — your response to Sean’s rather interesting post says a lot about you.

  152. I meant to say, “Keep it respectful and don’t feel the need.” It’s too much beer from the Twilight. Yum.

    Now it’s time to Occupy the remaining pitcher.

  153. Finally a support rally we can all work on. The Occupy house needs supplies. You can see they have begun painting and working on the house but much more is required.

    We request that you bring any supplies you can this weekend. Especially paint. Any paint you have can be dropped of this weekend. Any old plumbing fixtures, wire, furnature, wood, dishes, clothing – please drop off at the Occupy house this weekend.
    Whether you believe in the movement or not – This is Thanksgiving weekend. You have an opportunity to give generously. These people are in need. The more you can deliver to the house this week the better for us all.

  154. Hey Curious,
    It sounds like you have some first hand knowledge. Since this is a community site and anyone can write a new post, maybe you can share the story? Many of us would be interested in the details.

    Thanks.

  155. What part of THIS IS A PERSONS PRIVATE PROPERTY, YOU ARE COMITTING CRIMINAL TRESPASS don’t you understand. Take an empty bank building and create an ideas exchange like they did in London or some unused publically owned building. Make a coherent statement. The property is not yours, public property is!

  156. Get over it eyes. We are simply trying to improve a blighted building and make some use of it. All you need to do is clean out your basement of old paints and furniture and drop it by.

    A simple act of good will is all I am asking for.

  157. Nora, Jim said he would update so I didnt want to start a whole new thread, as I’m not super tech savvy. GHS pricipal’s email is above.

  158. Get over it eyes. Why would you expect these morons to understand such a simple principal as “ownership of property”. They see something they want, they do with it what they will.

  159. “Gentrification is hard to understand. As are are larger issues and structures that make life the way it is — power and privilege are concepts many of us shy away from.”

    Look, you’re inexplicably mixing two concepts.

    1) “larger issues and structures that make life the way it is”: Yes, this is precisely what I was talking about. The world is not a static entity, it is an ever evolving and changing platform.

    2) “power and privilege are concepts many of us shy away from”: Not me. I have no problem questioning the judgement of those in power or the entire concept that they deserve perveyance over any particular domain. But please, go back and re-read every single post in this thread, and tell me which person who has said they moved into the CD in the last 20 years, and YOU tell ME where the “privilege” and “power” is. Weird, because all I saw were a husband and wife who don’t make over 50k combined. I saw a man who described himself as poor. I saw people saying they moved in because it’s a good commute.

    Oddly enough, I didn’t see anyone say, “because the banks told us they’ll give us a good deal if we get ‘the coloreds’ out”. I didn’t see anyone mention a conspiracy of power to force anyone out of a neighborhood.

    The simple reality is that if you can’t afford to pay for your house, eventually you will no longer be able to live there. It’s like that in every single place in america, for every single race in america. The simple reality is that we are in the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. The simple reality of the world is that it is a place of limited resources, and that America has been lucky to have down as well as it has. Can you imagine how lucky we are not to be born in Europe during the reign of the Black Death? Can you imagine how lucky we are not to be born into the 700’s during a time of rebellion and millions of deaths in China? We’re not a perfect nation, but we have, for the most part, created a bubble of relatively great freedoms and opportunities in a chaotic and sometimes compassionate planet.

    But yes, instead or recognizing the natural entropy of the universe, let’s just say that any white person who moves into a non-white neighborhood is doing so maliciously. Not that they want affordable housing, but obviously because they are part of a European/White conspiracy to displace people of color. That, sir, is a giant joke.

    I wish people would focus this insanely energy and external anger into bettering their own situations. Instead of throwing essentially tantrums in the streets, why don’t you change the world for the better.

    And instead of chiding myself for a lack of respect, how about you come with some actual FACTS. What about gentrification is bad? What do you define as gentrification? Would it still be gentrification if a rich black hispanic couple moved into a poor white neighborhood? Does race have anything to do with it? Why should people who can’t afford to pay their houses be allowed to stay? Why should people who want to purchase a house in a certain neighborhood be disallowed to move in, based on a racial or economic profiling of the current inhabitants?

    You say it’s complex, I’m asking some incredibly simple and easy questions here.

  160. I have to say that I agree with Jim–the Occupy house is an enormous eye sore. It makes me sad and angry every time I drive or walk by the house–in one week, that place has been turned into a multi-colored mess. It looks like someone got bored and painted about 1/10 of the north side of the house a hideous color of green. Not to mention the A for anarchy painted (?) on an upstairs window. It certainly does not appear to be a “community/neighborhood” space.

    I feel like this is a giant slap in the face for those of us who initially supported the movement. I’m glad that Jim brought this up, because I’ve been thinking this all week: why come into our working-class neighborhood and mess things up?? Why not go to Medina, Laurelhurst, Madison Park? Or go downtown and try to occupy a swanky foreclosed condo? I’m being serious when I make these suggestions. You’d get a lot more visibility, and most likely arrested. However, I think if OS did something really brash and attracted police and media invovement, there would be more energy pumped back into the movement–maybe on a large enough scale to really start to scare the 1%. As it is, it just seems that this “foreclosed home occupation” is a crash pad and OS is losing focus.

  161. “simply”yes simple things for simple minds. This will not be a defense in court for the felony convictions that will be forthcoming.

  162. RE: Community Support for Occupy
    What part of THIS IS A PERSONS PRIVATE PROPERTY, YOU ARE COMITTING CRIMINAL TRESPASS don’t you understand. Take an empty bank building and create an ideas exchange like they did in London or some unused publically owned building. Make a coherent statement. The property is not yours, public property is!
    Comment by eyes

  163. Jeeezze! They are just poor kids trying to help. Least you could do is be welcoming. Would it have killed you to maybe even drop off some fresh bread?

  164. dont support holidays commerorating the beginning of the colonozation of the CD and the rest of the continent.

    dont b thankful on thanksgiving or give kindness just because it is the holiday commerorating the occupation of a continent.

  165. hmm… what caused the great depression? the free market did. recession is a normal function of over-accumulation under capitalism.

    its sounds like lucas does know what he’s talking about and you simply don’t see eye to eye. you should stop being so defensive and actually engage in a civil debate. it would be more productive

  166. don’t bother with “eyes”. based on his/her’s previous posts it appears that they are not really interested in intelligent or civil debate.

  167. ownership is a dubious concept at best. One individual can own 400 houses, irregardless of their need for 400 houses. Or one individual can own a few houses: a much closer match to that individuals needs. So tell me why this individual who doesn’t actually live in the CD and owns numerous other properties has a right to this abandoned house on 23rd? doesn’t seem very logical..

  168. I live in the neighborhood and took up the offer to go to the occupy house, the house doesn’t seem to be in any worse state, perhaps even better, though the front of the house is a giant political billboard, flying an anarchist flag. The people also seemed nice with good intentions. They have house rules, and Doctrine, electricity, and a makeshift kitchen. Though all intentions seem good, I will always be wary of good intentions fueled by a political agenda. Also all people living there seemed young and fully capable in body and mind, hopefully they will begin to seek legitimate employment, and begin supporting their own needs instead of relying on handouts from the working community. It only seems fair, so far rent and electricity is free. Also the space should if anything totally open to any one in the community, unfortunately I doubt most of the homeless, who unfortunately are drinkers or drug users won’t be welcome since drinking and drugs are not aloud, unfortunately they are not equipped to deal with rehabilitation. Id view this place, mucj more as a political headquarters, and living space for people who will share their beliefs and way of rules, and am failing to see the community improvement to come out of this. I don’t doubt good people or intentions, but let’s be honest, without the political agenda, it wouldnt be tolerated. If they continue to stay I hope to see and hear some sort of community input, besides a political view. I like my hood because people are respectful, and hard working, I hope the occupiers keep in that status as well. Good luck in your intent to better our hood, all my opinions are non malicious, but they must be spoken, they require no response or attempt to change them.

  169. So in addition to stealing Denmark West’s house, they’re now running up an electric and water bill in his name? More theft.

  170. stealing from rich people is fine when the rest of us are poor. your opinion means nothing. West Denmark was the CEO of BET as well as a major property investor. Some of us can barely afford to pay our rent. West Denmark doesn’t appear to have this problem since he lives in a 2 million dollar mansion on mercer island.

  171. You wont occupy the Mercer Island house, though. Why? Because you know that only in the CD – the containment zone – would the police turn a blind eye. You’re too cowardly to “occupy” the homes of people who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps in any area where the police actually respond.

  172. my guess is that it has more to do with where people live, not the level of cowardice. And people don’t wear boots with bootstraps anymore..

  173. typical bad identity politics. I suppose you think that rich black people are oppressed? of course its ok to steal from rich people, no matter what their race is, if their wealth means our (all poor people, of all races) poverty..

  174. Sooo Lucas has renamed himself j. Vanzetti after the famous Red Scare trial in Seattle circa 1921. Nice try!
    A Felony is not what you wanty to drag through life.

  175. Hmmm well I can barely pay my rent too,but I also job search, and work small jobs when I can, I find that a poor excuse for able bodied youth….I’m sorry guys your sweet and idealistic but little more then squaters with a political backing….like I tried to imply just try to back up what ya preach with actions in our neighborhood.

  176. So this “occupy” isn’t about foreclosures, or decolonizing (unless you mean getting rid of black homeowners), NOW it’s about justifying stealing because the victim is a once poor man, now wealthy. And somehow, his getting wealthy working at MTV has oppressed white anarchists from Poulsbo. Good grief. No wonder no one knows what Occupy stands for. It stands for everything and nothing. This week is stands for evicted anarchists stealing a vacant home. Gotcha!

  177. and wealthy as shit. They hardly have anything in common with poor and working class black homeowners.. or working homeowners of any race for that matter.. I doubt you would understand that though… no, rich people do not have a “right” to be rich. But all people do have a right to have a roof over their heads.

  178. if anyone on here who isn’t obsessed with the rights of wealthy bastards, check out foreclosure fighters or the seattle solidarity network. both organizations are doing excellent work to support tenants and homeowners fighting banks and landlords

  179. Thank you, Still in the 99%. Illegal habitation, graffiti etc. are all against residential codes. This mess doesn’t fly in “nice” neighborhoods because the neighbors would be calling the city around the clock. Rather than berate Lucas Carter and others for their immature political stances and their potty mouths, those of us who don’t welcome their squat need to get the city moving. It sounds like SPD is already aware, given what the Garfield principal wrote.

  180. Denmark has been notified. The Police have been and continue to be aware. Why don”t they act? I know Tom hates it every time I say it but we need to do away with this containment zone!
    Continual calling of 911, reporting it as a break in, getting the incident number operators name and following up on the call by all, with calls to the media and Pete Holmes office will embaress them and remove them.

  181. Do all of that AND report code violations online (Google “report code violation Seattle” and the page will come right up; also “Still in the 99%” had the link in her/his comment above). If we keep complaining, the city will have to do more than knock and talks. The squeaky wheel and all that….

  182. don’t you folks have some kids at Parnell’s to call the police on? Thats your usual MO isn’t it? That and attacking progressive movements like Umoja and Casa Latina?

  183. Lucas, don’t you have some lightbulbs full of paint to throw at police horses or women’s houses?

  184. Wow. I didn’t expect such naked honesty in this answer but there it is folks. They came right out and said it: You are the Haves. We are the Have Nots, and we are entitled to anything of hours whenever we feel like it.

    Get the hell out of America, communists.

  185. Rich people do not have a right to be rich… Right.

    Why is everyone even debating lucas? He’s a communist. He’s irrelevant.

  186. The owner does have to actually file a complaint with the authorities to get anything done. If they don’t that is their deal. BUT, becoming the “owner” of a property through squatting requires certain criteria be met. The squatting occupancy time line is disrupted each time a new squatter comes in. It starts all over again and because of that, they will never meet it.

  187. yeah, right after i drop my kid off at grandmas. nice try at being a smart ass. not more than a couple weeks ago, you people didn’t even know what a paint bomb was..

  188. Who to call!

    Captain – Dermody – 684-4332

    Sargent Grenon – 684-4318

    Grenon is is the sector Sargent, best contact.

  189. I read the statement. My first response was: Wow, that’s some terrible writing–self-satisfied, smugly “intellectual,” full of all the look-at-me code words.

    Check it out: “… thereby forgoing all of the friction and tension we’ve created where capital flows most freely in Seattle and within the recently-deceased ‘logic’ of capitalism, to create points of departure from that mindset and points of Attack against capital and its watchdogs. “

    Seriously?

    Not since I read Marxist critical theory in graduate school years ago have I suffered through so much crap disguised as real thinking. Don’t get me wrong–there’s a lot of legitimate Marxist/leftist philosophy in the world. You just won’t find it on the Puget Sound Anarchist website, as far as I can tell.

  190. Actually troy you forget an important aspect of their argument. You are also them. They represent you (99%). You are a have not but your mind is too dead to understand this. You are a brain washed tool of the 1%. They need to wake you up with these protests. Ideally they will attract a big enough croud so they can bash your brains in and get away un-notices. But your deserve this cause your basically an idiot. Watch out.

    In the mean time. Since they can’t actually go to Mercer Island or Medina to steal. Real cops would arrest them. Seattle PD could be real cops, but, they are under the control of rabid commies and fags. Not that there is anything wrong with that. So, in the mean time they must support themselves by stealing from the brain dead idiots like you that chose to live here in the CD thinking you could help build a brighter future for all. (For some of you that automatically translates to whiter future for white people, but, that’s not what I meant).

    So – basically yes, stealing from anyone and everyone is OK because these guys are on a mission from the anti-god to enforce a society without rules. No rules except my hand in your pants. Then when we all really hit the bottom, we can go kill off the rich people who done it.

  191. Hmmm I wonder who graffitied in front of the Library about closing ports. I love my library stop fucking up the area more with pressing your political beliefs on public areas. Assholes. I’m gonna whoop your little anarchist ass if I catch ya doing it.

  192. Outrageous. According to the Seattle Times (link to the story below), the Associated Press came to the conclusion that the GHS principal “hasn’t fielded any complaints about the Occupy house.” I guess they never asked whether he *had* any complaints. Also, “Seattle police were aware of the people squatting but haven’t received any phone calls about it.”

    People, if you are upset about this squat, PLEASE call the police. Somehow, the official line is that the neighborhood is “welcoming.” Here is the link to the story:
    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016889853_o

  193. Eyes’ number for Capt James Dermody contains a typo. The correct number is: 206-684-4333. I just spoke with Sargent Grenon (206-684-4318) who was very responsive and concerned and had received a couple of other calls. Apparently, the police are trying to contact the owner (Denmark West) to confirm that the squatters are not house guests. Please, let’s keep the heat on!

  194. Seriously, people, call. Or fill out the complaint form. You can do so anonymously, if you fear retaliation from these thugs.
    What I don’t get it that students protesting cuts to education (in which funding is mandated by our state constitution) are risking getting arrested. To quote from the Seattle Times, “Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday warned that protesters at the state Capitol who break the law while demonstrating will be arrested.”
    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politicsnorthwest/2016
    Yet, ‘protesters’ who are trespassing, vandalizing, stealing (who is paying for the utilities they are using?) and unlawfully occupying private property all the while ACROSS THE STREET FROM A SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOL seem to be exempt from arrest.
    I just don’t get it.

  195. I had the extreme displeasure of witnessing one of these clowns as he shat, around the corner from SCCC. Unfortunately, there is a whiff of faeces in the air, and it ain’t dog faeces.

  196. Yes and DPD is on it as well. The house is not legally habitable. The real estate company for West was caught by surprise. They just ned West to confirm he has no agreement for them to be there.
    So where will they run when they are finally removed? Better to anticipate and be proactive. What else is empty?

  197. Now I’m triple-glad that I didn’t donate anything to these people. No wonder I couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone about why they were at this house and how it would benefit the community, they never intended to benefit anyone but themselves. I hope the OS movement completely disassociates themselves from these squatters.

  198. I bet they won’t even TRY to “occupy” West’s house on Mercer Island. Gee, I wonder what kind of neighborhood they’ll choose to live in and tag & poop all over?? Hmmmm…..

  199. I just spoke with someone from DPD and from what I can tell, the slowness to respond to this situation comes from political quarters (i.e.: elected officials). It’s my impression that higher-ups in the Mayor’s office have decided to handle the situation with kid gloves. If that is not satisfying to you, please write to Mayor McGinn. (That’s the advice I was given.) His email address is [email protected]. His telephone number is 206-684-4000.

  200. if you hate them so much, stop wasting city money choking up the DPD, the SPD, and the mayors office for a handful of squatters. get your people together and go do it yourself. Its really fucking pathetic that people like you try to control the development of the neighborhood through the police and the DPD (who ironically love shitting on businesses but seem to lack enforcement when it comes to dilapidated properties and slumlords). do your own dirty work.

  201. …so if someone goes on an extended vacation, they should expect to find squatters living in their house when they get back?

  202. Seriously, people? This is what gets you really going? Some kids squatting in abandoned house? If you want to occupy your time and resources, how about focusing on: (1) the open air drug dealing, (2) the abandonment of commercial development at 23rd and Union, and elsewhere, (3) the regular property crime that afflicts the neighborhood, or (4) the ongoing violence including armed robberies and shootings.

    I don’t agree with the all of the group’s aims and from what I can tell, they don’t have many concrete proposals to address the problems they identify. But, I find it strange that the community is up in arms about a bunch of kids painting a house green and red. There are dilapidated houses throughout our neighborhood and this one is really no worse. If you want to take political action (e.g., filing complaints, writing the mayor), I suggest you choose one of the above far more pressing problems…

    Ashley, King St

  203. Troy, I’m not sure you know what a communist is. lets have a little history quiz here: 1) who is saul alinsky? 2) who was malcolm x? 3) what did the wobblies try to accomplish previous the first world war? 4) why did the deacons for defense form? one last one, for Seattle. WHO WAS HARRY BRIDGES! and how come dockies like him so much?

    all of these people and movements were labeled as “red” at one point or another. some were communists. some were not. My ideas are in inspired by their actions and lives because they addressed the real inequalities in America and to some extent, the rest of the world. do your best not to sound like a fucking idiot- don’t look this shit up on wikipedia- go READ A fucking HISTORY BOOK first, and then tell me about these people who were so important to developing the concept and practice of REAL democracy in america.

    on a side note, its people like you who make people like me relevant. class war is very much alive in america whether or not you want to recognize it.

  204. You’re joking right?? “Onwership is a dubious concept”????? What part of ownership is dubious, exactly? We live in a society that places a value on services or goods that we exchange with others in our society. Your value is represented in token form in money. When you would like to own something, you use your accrued effort to purchase it.

    Sounds pretty fucking simple to me.

    I work. I get money. I buy things. I own things.

    yet… it’s all a little nebulous and vague for you…? No wonder you people act the way you do. Get a fucking clue, and get a fucking job. You too can join the ownership society.

  205. A debate can only take place when there is an honest exchange of ideas.

    The only thing I have heard are emotionally based assertions and platitudes. I haven’t heard a single fact or precept that would constitute fodder for a debate in any post by -anyone- supporting this adolescent, quixotic farce.

    So please, pick a topic and we’ll debate. And Eyes is precisely correct, “Help with what???” I have yet to actually hear what this accomplishes. Again. This is just a group of young people excited to be Fighting the Man and aging hippies whose only thread of a path towards self-satisfaction is by fostering within themselves the idea that they alone see the world’s harsh realities for what they are, and they–along with their comrades–are the only true voice speaking up for The People. Give me a break. Grow up.

  206. Its not that I dont believe in affordable housing, I just dont believe in affordable housing ANYWHERE. Do you think there is affordable housing in Beverly Hills? Sure, for the super rich but not for me, I accept that. I wish I could have bought a house in the neighborhood I grew up in but I cant afford it now and never will be able to, suck it up. There is affordable housing in Nebraska, go there if it is all you can afford. No reason to make innocents lives worse and use some excuse like gentrification and blaming other races for ruining the culture instead of getting a job. I for one will not miss the folks standing on the corner of Parnells every night dealing drugs for their job.

  207. Hey Sean, I didnt move to the CD because it was hip. I moved here because I am lower class earner and cant afford living in a nicer neighborhood. Trust me, if I could afford to live away from this neighborhood with a criminal past I would but I cant so I will stay here and help clean it up. Whether that be me mowing my lawn, not doing drugs, not driving a huge polluting car, thumping bass that knocks the the dishes off my shelves, so be it.

  208. I agree with ya hey, more good people should be like Pheonix Jones. Imagine how quickly the drugs dealers, etc. would get the f out of town if everywhere they looked they saw people ready to take them down.