The national conversation around so-called “squatters” reached a fever pitch in recent weeks, spurred by conflicts that have gone viral and legislative actions in at least four states.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last week signed a bill aimed at giving Floridian homeowners “the ability to quickly and legally remove a squatter from a property,” while Georgia, South Carolina and New York have introduced bills cracking down on people who illegally take over homes.
Squatting is extremely rare, according to experts — so rare that there is no reliable data available on the number of squatters around the country. But with the handful of high-profile cases of property owners going to court to evict illegal residents, a right-wing media frenzy and the introduction of state bills, the topic has become ubiquitous.
Here’s what you need to know:
Squatting occurs when “somebody goes into a property with no legal right to it whatsoever,” said Eric Dunn, director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project.
It’s a form of trespassing but involves the intention of claiming ownership or permanent residency.
In recent weeks, politicians and news outlets have referenced so-called “squatters’ rights” — often conflating them with adverse possession, a rarely applicable legal doctrine used in cases when a person “occupies a home openly and notoriously” for years or decades, Dunn said. In such cases, there’s usually a dispute about ownership stemming from issues such as botched deeds.
But in the most literal sense, there’s no such thing as “squatters’ rights,” according to Dunn.
There are “some meager legal protections” for people accused of squatting, Dunn said. For instance, a homeowner can’t change the locks or go in with a gun and order squatters off the property.
The short answer, experts say: No.
Juan Pablo Garnham, a researcher and communications manager at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, called squatting “an extremely rare issue.”
Dunn, who started off his law career in Detroit — “where there’s more abandoned homes than the city can count” — said: “I can probably count on one hand the number of legitimate squatting cases I’ve seen.”
Sateesh Nori, a clinical adjunct professor of housing rights at NYU Law School, said: “I haven’t heard of a single case recently in which a homeowner says there’s squatters in their home.”
No public data seems to be available. Squatting is not tracked in national crime databases, such as those by the FBI or the Public Policy Institute of California.
“What I think is happening is that it’s just a good story,” Nori said. “It only takes two or three examples for people to think this is rampant. I don’t doubt the facts in these several incidents that have been reported — and it’s quite horrible what’s happened to these homeowners — but I don’t think there is some kind of epidemic of squatters taking over neighborhoods in New York City or anywhere.”
Despite its rarity, squatting has emerged as a political cudgel for the right wing — a squatting panic fed by a flurry of headlines that “feed into the larger narrative of crime, which is a political issue,” Nori said, noting that 2024 is a presidential election year and partisans are looking to motivate voters to go to the polls.
Since November, at least four states have introduced bills that aim to extend homeowners’ rights and speed up the processes to remove people living illegally in their homes.
A bill introduced by a Republican in South Carolina’s state House last week would allow a property owner to immediately remove a person unlawfully occupying a home and provides penalties for those breaking the law.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last week signed a similar bill, giving local sheriffs the power to quickly remove people illegally living in others’ homes. The bill was initially filed in November. The law, which can lead to second-degree felony charges for those on others’ property, takes effect July 1.
The Georgia Squatter Reform Act, introduced on Jan. 24, has passed the state legislature and is awaiting the signature of Gov. Brian Kemp (R). It makes it clear that squatting is a police matter, not a civil case, and aims to give landlords “a streamlined process for ejecting squatters.”
In New York, four Republican state senators co-sponsored a bill, filed on March 24, that defines squatting as criminal trespassing and aims to penalize it more harshly.
Dunn from the National Housing Law Project said that the new laws and proposals give police the power to adjudicate whether someone is a legitimate tenant or a squatter and are “a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Anytime you have the police involved, you’re creating more opportunities for violence and abuse of things that police are often involved in,” he added.
Several stories involving squatting gained media attention in recent weeks, with two standing out.
One involved Adele Andaloro, a New York woman who found that people had been living illegally in her home since February, according to ABC. Andaloro was arrested for changing the locks of her own house.
Also in March, Leonel Moreno, a Venezuelan citizen in the United States, created TikToks suggesting that people should occupy abandoned homes, citing adverse possession laws, which he called “squatters rights.” Moreno was arrested on March 29 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for entering the United States illegally, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
Moreno’s TikToks, the video of Andaloro getting arrested and a handful of similar incidents nationwide prompted a round of media coverage suggesting that squatting is on the rise, particularly by undocumented immigrants.
A Fox News host claimed on March 20 that President Biden was allowing migrants to “break into the country and then break into your bedroom.” Three days later, Joe Rogan, who hosts the country’s most streamed podcast, said the United States is “basically allowing people to steal people’s houses.”
Mentions of “squatters” were 14 times more common throughout the last week of March than they were a month earlier in social media posts, podcasts and other public statements from high-profile right-wing politicians, commentators and influencers, according to a Washington Post analysis.
Some observers view the narrative around the rise in squatters as a distraction from the housing crisis.
Brandon Weiss, a professor of law at American University, said an unprecedented number of U.S. households that cannot afford housing right now.
“Stories about the growing number of squatters is a sort of narrative, or rhetorical tool, being used to push back against tenants,” he said. “Narratives like this will shift the balance of power even further towards landlords.”
Weiss said that there are ongoing campaigns to provide greater housing security, but if the narrative becomes that landlords are the victims of tenants, it will deflect from the bigger problem of housing insecurity.
“Nobody is advocating wildly reckless lawbreaking, but if you take these caricatured cases to enact law reform, that can affect people in ways that the law probably didn’t intend,” he said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last week signed a bill aimed at giving Floridian homeowners “the ability to quickly and legally remove a squatter from a property,” while Georgia, South Carolina and New York have introduced bills cracking down on people who illegally take over homes.
Squatting is extremely rare, according to experts — so rare that there is no reliable data available on the number of squatters around the country. But with the handful of high-profile cases of property owners going to court to evict illegal residents, a right-wing media frenzy and the introduction of state bills, the topic has become ubiquitous.
Here’s what you need to know:
What to know
- What is squatting?
- Is squatting really a problem?
- What are the new laws and proposals around squatting?
- How did this national conversation come about?
What is squatting?
Return to menuSquatting occurs when “somebody goes into a property with no legal right to it whatsoever,” said Eric Dunn, director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project.
It’s a form of trespassing but involves the intention of claiming ownership or permanent residency.
In recent weeks, politicians and news outlets have referenced so-called “squatters’ rights” — often conflating them with adverse possession, a rarely applicable legal doctrine used in cases when a person “occupies a home openly and notoriously” for years or decades, Dunn said. In such cases, there’s usually a dispute about ownership stemming from issues such as botched deeds.
But in the most literal sense, there’s no such thing as “squatters’ rights,” according to Dunn.
There are “some meager legal protections” for people accused of squatting, Dunn said. For instance, a homeowner can’t change the locks or go in with a gun and order squatters off the property.
Is squatting really a problem?
Return to menuThe short answer, experts say: No.
Juan Pablo Garnham, a researcher and communications manager at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, called squatting “an extremely rare issue.”
Dunn, who started off his law career in Detroit — “where there’s more abandoned homes than the city can count” — said: “I can probably count on one hand the number of legitimate squatting cases I’ve seen.”
Sateesh Nori, a clinical adjunct professor of housing rights at NYU Law School, said: “I haven’t heard of a single case recently in which a homeowner says there’s squatters in their home.”
No public data seems to be available. Squatting is not tracked in national crime databases, such as those by the FBI or the Public Policy Institute of California.
“What I think is happening is that it’s just a good story,” Nori said. “It only takes two or three examples for people to think this is rampant. I don’t doubt the facts in these several incidents that have been reported — and it’s quite horrible what’s happened to these homeowners — but I don’t think there is some kind of epidemic of squatters taking over neighborhoods in New York City or anywhere.”
Despite its rarity, squatting has emerged as a political cudgel for the right wing — a squatting panic fed by a flurry of headlines that “feed into the larger narrative of crime, which is a political issue,” Nori said, noting that 2024 is a presidential election year and partisans are looking to motivate voters to go to the polls.
What are the new laws and proposals around squatting?
Return to menuSince November, at least four states have introduced bills that aim to extend homeowners’ rights and speed up the processes to remove people living illegally in their homes.
A bill introduced by a Republican in South Carolina’s state House last week would allow a property owner to immediately remove a person unlawfully occupying a home and provides penalties for those breaking the law.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last week signed a similar bill, giving local sheriffs the power to quickly remove people illegally living in others’ homes. The bill was initially filed in November. The law, which can lead to second-degree felony charges for those on others’ property, takes effect July 1.
The Georgia Squatter Reform Act, introduced on Jan. 24, has passed the state legislature and is awaiting the signature of Gov. Brian Kemp (R). It makes it clear that squatting is a police matter, not a civil case, and aims to give landlords “a streamlined process for ejecting squatters.”
In New York, four Republican state senators co-sponsored a bill, filed on March 24, that defines squatting as criminal trespassing and aims to penalize it more harshly.
Dunn from the National Housing Law Project said that the new laws and proposals give police the power to adjudicate whether someone is a legitimate tenant or a squatter and are “a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Anytime you have the police involved, you’re creating more opportunities for violence and abuse of things that police are often involved in,” he added.
How did this national conversation come about?
Return to menuSeveral stories involving squatting gained media attention in recent weeks, with two standing out.
One involved Adele Andaloro, a New York woman who found that people had been living illegally in her home since February, according to ABC. Andaloro was arrested for changing the locks of her own house.
Also in March, Leonel Moreno, a Venezuelan citizen in the United States, created TikToks suggesting that people should occupy abandoned homes, citing adverse possession laws, which he called “squatters rights.” Moreno was arrested on March 29 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for entering the United States illegally, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
Moreno’s TikToks, the video of Andaloro getting arrested and a handful of similar incidents nationwide prompted a round of media coverage suggesting that squatting is on the rise, particularly by undocumented immigrants.
A Fox News host claimed on March 20 that President Biden was allowing migrants to “break into the country and then break into your bedroom.” Three days later, Joe Rogan, who hosts the country’s most streamed podcast, said the United States is “basically allowing people to steal people’s houses.”
Mentions of “squatters” were 14 times more common throughout the last week of March than they were a month earlier in social media posts, podcasts and other public statements from high-profile right-wing politicians, commentators and influencers, according to a Washington Post analysis.
Some observers view the narrative around the rise in squatters as a distraction from the housing crisis.
Brandon Weiss, a professor of law at American University, said an unprecedented number of U.S. households that cannot afford housing right now.
“Stories about the growing number of squatters is a sort of narrative, or rhetorical tool, being used to push back against tenants,” he said. “Narratives like this will shift the balance of power even further towards landlords.”
Weiss said that there are ongoing campaigns to provide greater housing security, but if the narrative becomes that landlords are the victims of tenants, it will deflect from the bigger problem of housing insecurity.
“Nobody is advocating wildly reckless lawbreaking, but if you take these caricatured cases to enact law reform, that can affect people in ways that the law probably didn’t intend,” he said.
