Housing Takeover Report

On Friday, November 28th, five members and supporters of Poor People United occupied an abandoned building in downtown Rochester. Their message was simple: there should not be unutilized, abandoned, buildings in Rochester while people are forced to sleep on the streets at night.

On Friday, November 28th, five members and supporters of Poor People United (PPU) occupied an abandoned building in downtown Rochester. Charles Kellum, Ben Dean-Kawamura, Mary Shoemaker, Chris Powers and Matt Clark occupied the building at 8 Franklin Court after the Homeless Solidarity Rally at the Liberty Pole. The message of the action was simple: there should not be unutilized, abandoned, buildings in Rochester while people are forced to sleep on the streets at night.

Approximately fifty people marched from the Liberty Pole to the site, to support those at the action. The Rochester Raging Grannies were on site to lead singing from the crowd. Around 20 people stayed the entire duration of the takeover - almost four hours.

The five people involved expected to be arrested for their actions, although at times it seemed that they would be allowed to hold the building for the night. It took an hour for the police to show up at the scene, and when they came they seemed unsure of what they would do. Several of the officers expressed regret at having to arrest the activists, and agreed that something had to be done to help the homeless. The arrests also held a certain amount of irony, as many homeless people also get arrested deliberately, preferring a night in jail to a night on the streets.

Poor People United has been meeting with the county legislature for several weeks to try to get an emergency hypothemia shelter created in the city. An emergeny hypothermia shelter would operate the six month out of the year which have the lowest tempuratures and not have any fees or curfews and accept people currently "sanctioned" by the Department of Social Services. The talks have been moving fairly well, according to PPU, however temperatures are dropping and the county has not taken action so far.

The media response to the action was fairly encouraging. It was covered by channel 8 and channel 10 news, and an Democrat and Chronicle article was written on the protest.

The police reponse to the action was reasonable in many ways, though completly unreasonable in others. Many of the activists arrested said that the police treated them well, although one complained that the officers used more force than was necessary. However, several photographers and
videographers on the scene were hassled by
the police for simply trying to document the action. The corporate media there was allowed to work unharnessed.

The five were all granted a pre-trial release Saturday morning. They said
their night in jail was "awful, but better than sleeping on the streets Friday." Their court date is set for December 12th at 1:30pm.