How does America deal with hard times? By trimming the fat from our budgets. D.I.Y., people! Out: paying people for things. In: squatting in houses and being your own lawyer!

The foreclosure crisis has come full circle, to the satisfaction of everyone. Except whoever was expecting to get paid by anybody. Poor people can't pay their rent, and get evicted; they become homeless; meanwhile, the whole foreclosure and resale process drags on for months and months, so the house sits empty; so the evictees move into the empty foreclosed houses. It's a win-win situation! Except for the banks and whatnot, but who's gonna defend them now, hmm? Who is going to stand up and take up the cause of kicking homeless people out of foreclosed houses so that they can sit empty in order to save a few bucks for the same god damn lenders and banks and landlords that created this whole mess?

Republicans will whine about it. But they damn sure aren't going to go around kicking down doors and hauling out homeless families vigilante-style. Only the cops will do that, because they have to. But the poors have a hole card when they're grabbed by the legal system: being their own lawyers. Everybody's doing it! In civil cases, anecdotal evidence shows more and more people are deciding not to hire a lawyer, to save cash. This, of course, causes them to fuck up their cases, often. At least they have their squats to go back to.

Imagine a nation with adequate housing and a legal system that could be navigated by the average person without spending thousands of dollars on expert representation. THAT'S CRAZY.
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