Group Fights Eviction Deadline With Human Barricade
BOSTON -- A Dorchester mother fighting to keep her home received a reprieve Wednesday from an eviction deadline with the support of many local groups.
NewsCenter 5's Gail Huff reported that protesters created a human barricade around the front door at 26 Semont Road.
They refused to let a constable physically force Melanie Griffiths-Evans and her three teenage children from their Dorchester home. U.S. Bank foreclosed on the home in 2007.
Community activists, friends and family waited for the constable to show up at 9 a.m. Labor union leaders were also there to lend support.
"These banks, the way they are doing it right now, are vicious, and they could take your house right out from under you," said Ed Childs, of the Dining Services Union.
By 9:30 a.m., the constable did not show up at the home. Instead, he called Griffiths-Evans and said that he would not be coming Wednesday.
"In the future, I just hope that they'd be willing to negotiate. My intent was that they see me as a family, as people, and not as an account number. I think we've accomplished that," she said.
Inell Mendes is renter, and the bank has taken over her building, too.
"We really don't know what is going on. We are just waiting," she said.
"There's lots of absentee buildings being foreclosed, and the first the tenants hear about it is when they get an eviction notice from the bank. Probably at least 750 properties will be foreclosed in 2008, and so that is probably 1,500 plus families facing eviction," housing activist Steve Mecham said.
BOSTON -- A Dorchester mother fighting to keep her home received a reprieve Wednesday from an eviction deadline with the support of many local groups.
NewsCenter 5's Gail Huff reported that protesters created a human barricade around the front door at 26 Semont Road.
They refused to let a constable physically force Melanie Griffiths-Evans and her three teenage children from their Dorchester home. U.S. Bank foreclosed on the home in 2007.
Community activists, friends and family waited for the constable to show up at 9 a.m. Labor union leaders were also there to lend support.
"These banks, the way they are doing it right now, are vicious, and they could take your house right out from under you," said Ed Childs, of the Dining Services Union.
By 9:30 a.m., the constable did not show up at the home. Instead, he called Griffiths-Evans and said that he would not be coming Wednesday.
"In the future, I just hope that they'd be willing to negotiate. My intent was that they see me as a family, as people, and not as an account number. I think we've accomplished that," she said.
Inell Mendes is renter, and the bank has taken over her building, too.
"We really don't know what is going on. We are just waiting," she said.
"There's lots of absentee buildings being foreclosed, and the first the tenants hear about it is when they get an eviction notice from the bank. Probably at least 750 properties will be foreclosed in 2008, and so that is probably 1,500 plus families facing eviction," housing activist Steve Mecham said.
