Street New York City squatters caught between their need for decent homes and a city bent on privatization. The squatters facing eviction, joined by non-resident supporters, had been on the streets since 4 a.m., watching the barricades, chanting, and drumming on dumpsters. Adverse possession is a legal principle in common law giving people the right to keep someone else's property if they have openly and notoriously used it for over ten years without receiving a formal objection or notice to vacate. Many of the East 13th Street residents have been there for over ten years, putting in long hours and hard work to make the buildings habitable, and they have documentation to prove the city was aware of their presence. The squatters comment that along with making the buildings habitable, they brought improvements to the neighborhood through a drop in the crime and drug traffic that had occurred in the empty buildings.
Many neighbors agree.
Stanley Cohen, a lawyer for the squatters, says the current practice of the city making a profit by selling off its housing stock makes their position in this case that much weaker. The city has owned many buildings such as those on East 13th Street for decades after landlords abandoned them or they were seized for back taxes. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani's policy on the buildings is to hand them to the private sector as quickly as possible, leaving tenants' groups with questions about how community based the developers really are and how current tenants' rights are going to be insured. The city is backing away from other tenant responsibilities as well by cutting services that act as a safety net against homelessness, encouraging rent deregulation, and neglecting to seize buildings for tax arrears. Cohen says all of these privatization policies cut away at the traditional argument against adverse possession claims, which is that the city takes responsibility to maintain public property for the common good.