Reneka Wheeler and Michelene Meusa have been on the streets since July, shuffling between homeless shelters with their two kids.
On Thursday, they moved into a bright pink bungalow in SW Atlanta’s hardscrabble Pittsburgh community — not as owners or tenants, but as occupiers.
“We’re taking one back from the bank,” said Meusa, adding they have the blessing of the home’s former owners.
The deed currently belongs to New York-based M&T Bank, which now finds itself engaged in a game of chicken with Occupy Our Homes Atlanta, which facilitated the takeover on behalf of Wheeler and Meusa.
“We’re doing what the banks have been doing to us for years,” Occupy spokesman Tim Franzen said.
Whether there’s any repercussions remains to be seen.
An M&T spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution they are investigating the matter. Meanwhile, Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos said the department won’t act unless there’s a complaint filed by the bank.
“It’s a risky act of civil disobedience,” Franzen said.
Occupy Our Homes volunteers will remain with the family at first and vows to resist any attempt to remove them.
“The whole notion that an institution can say this is our home and put people in the street … there is something fundamentally wrong with that,” said Joe Beasley, Southeast Regional Director of Rainbow/PUSH.
Beasley said if law enforcement tries to remove the home’s new inhabitants, “They won’t be the only ones going to jail.”
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