New York Squatters Tape Into American Values

When squatters took over the buildings on the Lower East Side, they were tapping into a long American tradition of lame claim to land by occupying and developing it. By the 1960s and 70s, the idea of urban homesteading had taken hold in cities. Local governments would offer cheap or free houses to low income residents provided they worked on the buildings and brought them up to code. This was known as Sweat Equity. Some of the squatters in New York basically saw themselves as providing a kind of sweat equity, even if it wasn't under any officially sanctioned program.