The Michigan Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) announced today that it is recruiting people to participate in a campaign of civil disobedience aimed at keeping foreclosure victims from being evicted from their homes in Flint and Detroit. 

Carrie Guzman of ACORN’s Lansing chapter explained that the “Homesteading” program will train volunteers in the techniques of civil disobedience and then establish a network so that when participating families receive eviction notices ordering them out of their homes activists gather and attempt to block the eviction.

Flint and Detroit are part of the second wave of cities where ACORN groups have begun eviction resistance programs.

In Detroit foreclosures have been suspended by Sheriff Warren Evans who stated that provisions of the federal bank bailout prevent him from forcing people from their homes. Evans is being sued in federal court by Towne Mortgage Co. of Troy, which is arguing the foreclosures must continue.