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PUBLISHED BI-WEEKLY
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JAN. 22-FEB. 5, 1981
American Federal Confronts Squatiers It is not a permanent court order—there is to be a hearing on the matter Jan. 30— and the Tysingers could end up back out in the cold in a month or two. And it does not solve the problem for the hundreds of families squatting in some of Detroit’s thousands of abandoned houses, many with no other place to go. But it did give the Tysingers a home in the coldest part of the Michigan winter, and it does give them a foot in the door in terms of renting or purchasing the home, which is what they hope to do somehow. It also means that anyone else who is squatting illegally in an abandoned home apparently cannot be thrown out without a chance to defend themselves in court.
Pretenders: One of the Best of 1980
Baraka Reads at the DIA
Bad Luck and Trouble
by Steve Orr T he house is a solid-looking one, a two-story brick ona comfortable
colonials
in a middle-class
northwest
street of Detroit
neighborhood. Its sidewalks are unshoveled, but the house is — definitely lived in. Inside it is toasty warm. Inside are Brady Tysinger, his wife Audrey and their five children. They are squatters—they have no legal_title to the house, pay no rent, are not even sure who owns the property. The family— destitute, with no place to stay—walked into the unlocked, unboarded house on Christmas Eve, and stayed. What makes the story more remarkable, though, is that the Tysingers have won temporary official sanction for their squatting. In a legal maneuver apparently unprecedented, Neighborhood Legal Services attorneys working on behalf of the family obtained a restraining order barring the home’s alleged owners and the police from evicting the family without due process.
rady Tysinger seems a sad man who struggles to fend off defeat with an optimism that is nearly used up. His story as he tells it is surely a sad one. Two years ago, he says, he was a hand on the USS Gulf Spring, a merchant vessel, shipping out of Port Arthur, Texas. One day when the seas were running heavy, ‘Tysinger was cleaning up some grease. Bending over, he misjudged a roll of the ship and flew into the air. When he landed he hurt his back. When the ship put in at Philadelphia some weeks later, he was bad off enough that he was flown back to Texas. He hasn’t worked since, in part because of his back and other
injuries related to his fall, in part because of other health problems doctors discovered then. Diabetes and a hernia are among them, he says. The spinal trouble which Tysinger has is inoperable, and the other problems left him totally disabled, he says. “T can’t work, can’t get out and take care of my family,” he says. “I feel good only for a few hours at a time.” Faced with that, he says, he learned his mother, who lives‘in Detroit, was seriously
ill. So the family packed up and came here. To move its furniture, clothes and other Continued on page 6
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