Squatters Seize Vacant City-Owned Building

A group of affordable-housing advocates, including four homeless people, have illegally moved into an abandoned city-owned building to draw attention to their cause.

The squatters have turned on the electricity and will turn on the water and start cleaning up the place if the school district, which owns the four-story building, allows them to stay.

Police said they do not plan to intervene in what a spokesman termed “a little bit of civil disobedience.”

A school district spokeswoman did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

“If they just leave us here, we’ll start doing the basic cleanup and make this place livable,” said Ted Gullicksen of San Francisco-based Homes Not Jails. “The streets are littered with out-of-work electricians and carpenters and other skilled workers.”