Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/us/10squatter.html?hp

I very infrequently find the New York Times interesting. It's usually a fine source of information, but anything that verges on opinion, social issues, whatever, I just skim over or ignore. To be fair, this isn't limited to The Times - as I've grown older and more bitter I find that my tolerance for the opinions or thoughts of pundits, experts, or even worse non-experts talking on subjects where there are experts available to talk that they ignore, has waned dramatically.

So anyway, I was pretty surprised when I found the linked article. It's not opinion or anything, but it actually got me to stop and realize that I don't know what I think of the issue.

For synopsis, and because the link will eventually die:

The housing crisis has made there be a lot of vacant houses. There are homeless people. Some homeless people have moved in to vacant houses. Some "advocacy groups" have begun helping homeless people move in to vacant houses. Obviously this is great for the homeless people, and makes the advocates feel great about themselves as well. However, it's also obviously illegal (and the advocates freely admit that). The majority of the houses are bank owned, though some are owned by other investors. Perhaps the most shocking thing in the article is that these groups sometimes have a locksmith show up, change the front door lock, and hand them a key, which they then hand off to the new occupants.

So yeah, I'm conflicted, I guess. It's great to put a roof over a family's head. It's not so great to steal. Not only is the advocacy group helping people steal a vacant house, it's a house that in theory the bank could be renting out for some real amount.