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MAX RAMEAU STOOD at a lectern in one of Portland State University's student centers on an April afternoon. "Being against oppression and exploitation in your mind is not enough," he told a group of 70 activists. Rameau had been invited to Portland, Ore., to talk about Take Back the Land, his audacious- and illegalcampaign to fight homelessness caused by the economic crisis.
Take Back the Land, based in Miami, finds empty foreclosed homes and illegally moves homeless families into them. So far his organization has moved nine families into "liberated" houses and has at least four more occupations planned.
Squatting has a long history in the United States. During the westward expansion, much of the land was settled by squatters. Pioneers lived on land they had no legal entitlement to until the federal government recognized their rights as "homesteaders" with several pieces of legislation in the 1800s.
More recently, squatters have had...