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CNN Live Sunday
NYC Squatters Get Chance to Own Their Homes Legally
Aired November 03, 2002 - 18:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: They certainly look nothing like the pioneers who settled free land in the Old West, under the Homestead Act, but some New Yorkers who helped themselves to quarters in abandoned buildings now have a chance to own their homes legally, now that New York City has a Homestead Act of its own.
CNN's Jason Bellini reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Now, how long have you been living in this place?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twelve years, since 1990.
BELLINI (voice-over): Squatters is what they are. Homesteaders is what April Murlin (ph) prefers to call her family.
(on camera): Looking around here already, this looks like a normal apartment in New York City.
(voice-over): A term now changing from euphemism to reality.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have our hot water heater underneath that red curtain.
BELLINI: These fabled Bohemian dwellings, once raw and renegade, are becoming legal and legit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're the last historic squat, and they're going to do something historic by becoming the first of the squats to go legal, and become home owned, tenant owned, low income, co-ops.
BELLINI: The city of New York agreeing to sell the buildings for $1, to an organization that will in turn, over time, sell them back to the squatters.
JOHN WARREN, NYC DEPT. OF PRESERVATION AND HOUSING: You give them $1, they give us a building. You get absolutely no funding, anything that needs -- any work that goes into the buildings now we have to take out a mortgage for.
BELLINI: In the '90s, the city of New York, the owner of the abandoned buildings, sent in riot-gear clad police to evict the squatters. The squatters resisted, and remained. WARREN: Well, we thought it was a pragmatic solution to a 20- year-old problem.
BELLINI (on camera): Why do you think this city decided finally to give in and let you keep these places?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think, we beat the city in a lot of ways, we beat them psychologically.
WARREN: And we saw this as a great opportunity to create permanent affordable housing, and get the buildings brought up to building code.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When people come in and they see these nice apartments that we've slaved and spent over a decade building, and they say like, what, you got this, you just walked in to the, you know -- they think we just walked in to, you know, this beautiful apartment, when actually what I came in to was a completely empty shell.
BELLINI (voice-over): The Lower East Side in recent years, has become a hip, safe, expensive place to live. Monthly rent for an apartment like April's (ph) would normally be well over $1,000.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We took it from being a ruin, into something beautiful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Living and sleeping in, you know, 40 degree weather inside is tough, but, you know, yes, that was the exchange for an ideal.
BELLINI: An ideal, an adventure, and now, a victory.
Jason Bellini, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 3, 2002 - 18:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: They certainly look nothing like the pioneers who settled free land in the Old West, under the Homestead Act, but some New Yorkers who helped themselves to quarters in abandoned buildings now have a chance to own their homes legally, now that New York City has a Homestead Act of its own.
CNN's Jason Bellini reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Now, how long have you been living in this place?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twelve years, since 1990.
BELLINI (voice-over): Squatters is what they are. Homesteaders is what April Murlin (ph) prefers to call her family.
(on camera): Looking around here already, this looks like a normal apartment in New York City.
(voice-over): A term now changing from euphemism to reality.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have our hot water heater underneath that red curtain.
BELLINI: These fabled Bohemian dwellings, once raw and renegade, are becoming legal and legit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're the last historic squat, and they're going to do something historic by becoming the first of the squats to go legal, and become home owned, tenant owned, low income, co-ops.
BELLINI: The city of New York agreeing to sell the buildings for $1, to an organization that will in turn, over time, sell them back to the squatters.
JOHN WARREN, NYC DEPT. OF PRESERVATION AND HOUSING: You give them $1, they give us a building. You get absolutely no funding, anything that needs -- any work that goes into the buildings now we have to take out a mortgage for.
BELLINI: In the '90s, the city of New York, the owner of the abandoned buildings, sent in riot-gear clad police to evict the squatters. The squatters resisted, and remained. WARREN: Well, we thought it was a pragmatic solution to a 20- year-old problem.
BELLINI (on camera): Why do you think this city decided finally to give in and let you keep these places?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think, we beat the city in a lot of ways, we beat them psychologically.
WARREN: And we saw this as a great opportunity to create permanent affordable housing, and get the buildings brought up to building code.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When people come in and they see these nice apartments that we've slaved and spent over a decade building, and they say like, what, you got this, you just walked in to the, you know -- they think we just walked in to, you know, this beautiful apartment, when actually what I came in to was a completely empty shell.
BELLINI (voice-over): The Lower East Side in recent years, has become a hip, safe, expensive place to live. Monthly rent for an apartment like April's (ph) would normally be well over $1,000.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We took it from being a ruin, into something beautiful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Living and sleeping in, you know, 40 degree weather inside is tough, but, you know, yes, that was the exchange for an ideal.
BELLINI: An ideal, an adventure, and now, a victory.
Jason Bellini, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
