Take Back The Land - Background

Background

See also: Umoja Village

Take Back the Land was originally formed in 2006 as an anti-gentrification organization inspired by the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign in South Africa. The group built the Umoja Village in Miami in 2006, a shantytown on an undeveloped lot in support of the "black community's right to own land". Fifty homeless people lived in the village. After the village burned down in April 2007, the group moved 14 of the ex-residents into a warehouse. Max Rameau released a book detailing the experience entitled Take Back the Land: Land, Gentrification and the Umoja Village Shantytown.

Partly due to overbuilding and speculation, Florida, and particularly Miami, have been affected by the housing crisis in the late 2000s recession. In September 2008, Florida had the second highest rate of foreclosures in the country.

Take Back the Land moved the first family into an unoccupied house on October 22, 2007. By November 2008, it had opened up six houses, and by April 2009, the group had moved 20 families into foreclosed homes.

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