PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Landslide Community Farm Farmhouse Evicted--Take Action!
by Landslide Community Farm Friday, Nov. 07, 2008 at 12:43 PM
landslide@riseup.net

Farmhouse of local community farm illegally evicted this morning. Take Action!

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At a little before 9:00 am this morning, four police officers and two representatives from Pittsburgh Public Works arrived at the Landslide Community Farm farmhouse (#3 Allequippa St.) and told everyone inside to leave—the house was being boarded up.

Police and Public Works officials could produce no documentation other than a work order instructing them to board up the house. Apparently someone had phoned in a complaint stating that 20 or so ‘vagrants’ had been living in the house. There had been no advance notice, no opportunity to fix any purported problems, just an abrupt eviction.

Police demanded to see a written lease. When none could be presented (our lease agreement is verbal, as are around 40% of all leases agreements) they told us that they had ‘no choice’ but to comply with the order and board up the house. Police made it clear that the owner of the house had not requested the eviction and that they had not contacted her before moving in to evict us.

We are working hard to settle the situation but we need your help to pressure the authorities to let us back into our homes. Please call:

Mayor Luke Ravensthal’s Hotline- 311
Department of Public Works- (412) 255-2790 (ext 3)

Tell the Department of Public Works and the Mayor that Landslide community farm is an established and respected community project. Take all appropriate action to let these farmers back into their homes!

Follow http://www.landslidecommunityfarm.org for updates!

www.landslidecommunityfarm.org

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Update!
by Landslide Community Farm Friday, Nov. 07, 2008 at 12:44 PM

**Update**
Councilwoman Tonya Payne’s office has contacted us to say that she’s working on the issue and that we should stop contacting her so she can get to work helping us. Please stop calls to Councilwoman Payne’s office but continue calling Mayor Ravensthal’s hotline 311 and the Department of Public Works (412) 255-2790 (ext 3).

City officials are now telling us that we are being evicted because the house had no doors or windows. You can clearly see doors AND windows in the photograph below (which was taken at the time of the eviction). Our attorneys are advising us that regardless of any alleged building code violations, the eviction was without proper notice or opportunity to remedy any problems and completely illegal.

Thank you all for all of your support. Keep checking back to http://www.landslidecommunityfarm.org for updates. Let’s keep the pressure on!

In Solidarity,
Landslide Community Farm

www.landslidecommunityfarm.org

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Update--Farmhouse Saved!
by Landslide Saturday, Nov. 08, 2008 at 5:21 PM

After hundreds of phone calls to city council, the mayor’s office, Pittsburgh Public Works and Pittsburgh Police; pressure from Councilwoman Tonya Payne; and the threat of a lawsuit from the ACLU, we have regained control of the farmhouse. Thank you to everyone who made phone calls to support us or stopped by the farm to give us all much-needed hugs and kind words. And a special thanks to Councilwoman Tonya Payne’s office and to the ACLU for their very valuable support.

We’re humbled by all of the support we’ve received, but looking around our community we are painfully reminded that these oppressive and repressive evictions are not at all uncommon and our situation is not unique. What is unique is that we had the privilege to call on such a strong network of people for support and solidarity. As we move back into our farmhouse we express our solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of people who are evicted from their homes every year.

Still, however, we are anticipating a long uphill battle to protect our farm and maintain the work we’re doing here at Landslide. We’ll be posting updates on the situation as it progresses and letting you all know what you can do to help out. In the meantime, we encourage you to stop by the farm for brunch on Sunday’s at noon and workdays on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays starting at 9 am.

Once again, thank you to everyone for helping us get our home back!

Love and Solidarity,
Landslide Community Farm

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