In New York City, an occupation of a vacant home has entered its second month. Community organizations, church groups and Occupy Wall Street protesters took over the property on December 6 during an Occupy Our Homes action to reclaim foreclosed homes from bailed-out banks. The home is located in Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood, which is marked with high rates of foreclosures and abandoned property. Alfredo Carrasquillo says he hopes to inspire similar actions across the country.

Alfredo Carrasquillo: “When I was going through the shelter with my kids and their mother, and we decided we didn’t want to go through that no more, and that’s why I wounded up couch hopping, because I didn’t want to go through that experience anymore, and I didn’t want my kids to have to go through that experience anymore. So I came to this point where I jumped on this opportunity, and I wanted to make it a national movement to help all the families that are homeless and dealing with the situation I had to deal with. The next steps are to move in more families, hopefully do a large movement of multiple families into homes, which is the potential next step that we’re working towards.”