‘It Is Being Weaponized’: DeSantis Defends Florida's Hard Crack Down On Squatters 

Amazing you have to defend laws to combat squatters. Upside down world.

All states need to follow this lead!

DeSantis shouldn’t have to be defending the crackdown. Every other state should be explaining why they haven’t done anything yet.

The fact he would have to “defend” any law against squatters shows the level of idiocracy this country has reached.

I am not a DeSantis supporter, yet, i do agree with legislation that stops people from squatting. This should have been handled by authorities, not civil courts.

If your homeless or illegal don't come to Florida

Good for you and your constituents Governor Desantis.

I think this should be a national law.

How is it possible to have so many homeless unless it’s been a deliberate effort to make people live this way. 😮

It’s terrible at transit terminals. Super scary and unsafe.

Thank you sir

Macon GA. Needs this ASAP.....Its not sustainable and its inhuman for government not to step up to not only be the public safety agents for housed citizens, but also for the betterment of the homeless. Humans should have shelter and have to be accountable for themselves as adults.

I agree with this bill

Wow...a politician that makes sense and what Americans want

DeSantis 2028!

The state of being homeless does not equate to the practice of drug use. The fact that property value is worthy of more reverence than the lives of humans is a big red flag for 'society'. It is important to know that your home and neighborhood are safe. It is also important to note that hating the state of homelessness should not equate to homeless people. Hate the conditions, not the people.

Every other state should be sued for owners damages resulting from allowing the crime legal in the first place.

So why aren’t we addressing the homeless problem? Homeless has not declined, it is more prevalent now than ever

Bravo! 🇺🇸

BEHAVIOR!? WHAT AN ASS! People need affordable housing? I think squatting is awful, but let’s go do something about housing. Homeless people cannot just be declared criminals. Nobody wants to be homeless.

Common sense people!! If you don’t own or rent said property… YOU ARE TRESPASSING AND SUBJECT TO CASTLE DOCTRINE LAWS!!!

Yo…Desantis is signing something every week 😭😭😭…bro is actually trying

Theres always been laws - thats why its called a "Right of Way, if you dont live there, you got to keep moving.

I've had a few periods of houselessness in my 43 years. I can see what they're "saying" this bill is supposed to do (help/treatment/shelters/services. Now what isn't being said right here is that this gives law enforcement and citizens who are gung-ho about punishing people who don't have a residence at the present time the ability to arrest, jail, hold in jail due to the inability to pay bail under the pretense of waiting for a rehab or shelter to have space for them. I was never the type to sleep in public or diaplay my homelessness to people, especially kids. But this is scary for me to hear. I hope they've got substance abuse and crisis counselors on hand as well as mental health to go to the calls with the police by their side the whole time. We'll see how this shakes out

You GO De Santis!🎉

Won't anyone think of the property values??

I can finely agree with him on something

I do not support Ronnie, but this law makes sense to me.

How about health and sanitation!?

PEOPLE BORN AND RAISED HERE NEED A DISCOUNT ON COST OF LIVING ESPECIALLY THE ONES WHO WERE HERE AND NEVER LEFT

I truly believe Governor DeSantis is responding to and looking out for the citizens of Florida.

Strong honorable Gov. DeSantis, man of action.

No landowner should face the seizure of their properties by squatters. How can this happen what’s next cars can be stolen because it sits empty for a while.

Is this legislation public info? Whats in it and the budgets

Thank you sir Let Gov Holcomb know it’s ok😢

who in the actual heck is on the squatters' side?

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

I’m so glad he stayed as our governor…This shouldn’t even need a law in place.

Grow up yall

He should have been the republican choice for President!

This is a HUGE WIN for every homeowner! Send Desantis an e Mail, congrats! Job well done! No matter what party you’re in…. So Yes to Desantis, & No, to squatters rights. The Feds need to get laws in place to protect property owners from squatters.

🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

I will pray for God’s will concerning this ….best I can do.

Rent in areas in FL are $2000+ a month. I would never rent an apartment. Instead, it is best to sleep in a car or outside rent free. Apparently that makes me a criminal lmao. I have a clean driving record, clean criminal background. Never done drugs, I don't drink alcohol, take a shower every day. No one even knows I'm homeless and the last time I told a coworker I was he thought I was trolling him. Not every homeless person is shooting needles and causing scenes or looking for violence. In fact, over half of them are not this type. The people who haven't lived this life can't see the difference because they're not in it lol.

About time squatters have to many rights

If you completely get rid of all safe guards on evictions outright then you will also have renters who paid their rent and did everything they were supposed to do tossed out on the street when they have a sustainable case against a landlord. There are absolutely squatters who abuse the system but the examples of paper terrorists are used to change the law to benefit the bad landlords.

homeless Florida citizens are not all criminals. While protecting the property values of those who are not homeless, what is being done to protect the law abiding Florida citizens who have lost their jobs and become homeless. Homelessness is not a crime. No sleeping on public property, fine. No squatters rights, fine. But, what is actually being done to prevent homelessness and help those affected? Love and compassion are still important.

Absolutely

If the Uniparty would do more about low wages and high housing costs, squatting wouldn't be an issue. This Desantis grandstanding is not likely to solve anything.

This is absolutely insane.

Thank you DeSantis for protecting FL homeowners.

Desantis promotes fear and hatred. Is it because he is afraid, and has hatred in his heart?

Why would any sane citizen be against this….wait till it’s your house

They need you in Texas!

While you certainly could revoke all legal protection for squatters and remove all procedural safeguards to prevent evictions, if you do that, you get the original problems they were meant to solve. I said this in response to the story about the NYC squatter who got a NYC homeowner arrested. I agree that was balderdash but... Stories like this often lead people to be in favor of doing what Florida did where they just abolished squatters rights out right. I don't think that that's a good position either. Most of the laws that this squatter cites, in isolation, and assuming a court that isn't backlogged for 3 years, are good ideas when they aren't combined into this chimera of stealing people's houses through fraud and bad faith paper terrorism. They could really cut back on this kind of thing if the courts were not backlogged and instead it only took a week to get a court date. I do also feel that there should be a penalty on this squatter for fraud and bad faith, meritless filings. I could see someone advocating to protect leaseholders who were just scammed. I do think there is a legitimate state interest in keeping people in homes and not throwing people on the street. Writing the law in such a way does mean that there will be renters who have paid their rent and yet are tossed on the street with all of their possessions thrown in the garbage with no notice at all or any due process, because someone scammed them into believing that they owned an otherwise unoccupied property that they did not own. There could also be other disputes between landowners and renters where the renter has a valid claim or at least ought to have enough time to move their crap out of the property and find other living arrangements. The person in this story though, gives everyone who needs these rights and protections a bad name. The metaphor Louis used at the beginning is an apt one. In his case, he was doing his work and adding a little something extra to make the day go by a little faster even though it was against the rules. A defensible case could be made that letting him play his music while doing his work is helping him be more productive overall in the long run. Or at the very least making him less disruptive than he would otherwise be. But then some schmuck has to come and ruin it for everybody by being the poster child for why they don't let students have headphones or other electronic devices.

Desantis, need to help with the mental health of the homeless first.

🌍❤🌹

We need help do we have help for the homeless?? @Ron

If Florida stays as expensive as it is as there’s gonna be a lot more homeless people and I hear they’re already are a lot of people that have been forced leave their homes and live in their cars because they can’t afford insurance on their homes.

I guess it’s really this easy now to be a good politician in this world right now. Just di the moral and just thing and your gold

Would not give Trump .0001 cents for his cause. Don’t need money in prison.

Newsom dreams he can be a DeSantis governor

Thanks

ITS CRAZY BECAUSE MOST SQUATTERS HERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WERE BORN AND RAISED HERE…. Just because you have money to buy it DOES NOT MAKE IT YOURS PEOPLE DESERVE TO INHERIT WITHOUT NO MATTER IF THEY CANT PAY

The problem is overpopulation. Contraception fixes that. Ever heard of Easter Island? Do you know what it means to "exceed the carrying capacity?" Also, there will always be a certain percentage of mental illness in any population, but when that society reaches the hundreds of millions, then imagine how many disabled and drug addicted people you have. They can't buy houses or rent apartments. Immigrants may be good, hard-working people too, but they're all having 8 kids.

Florida being based for once

Of course, what he actually means when he says put our communities first is put rich white Christian communities first.

I hope GOD will stop this man! I will never have anything to do with Florida. The good people who probably live there are on their own. He is their choice, aparently!

The homeless ppl are the community as well. Each person for this madness is also in line for the same once the corporations own the houses

😂😂😂

Thank You Gov DeSantis for keeping Florida safe. We don't need people strung out on drugs camping out and starting dangerous fires on nearby wooded lots or breaking into and squatting peoples homes. They can go to a homeless shelter, get off the drugs or get out of Florida.

Deal with the issue don’t go partisan

20 million ilegalls came in the past 4 years, we dont have enough affordable housing for our own people.

Thank you governor DeSantis!!

Great bill. Now it is for the other states to follow.

👏👏👏👏👍❤️

Picking and choosing comments to fit the agenda is not American. Where did my comment go that was disagreeing with this. Funny I see all these comments agreeing. I see what RU-vid has done here. Seems to be a common thing lately

God, I wish he were my governor!

We absolutely have the best Governor in the country! We wish we could keep him indefinitely. He would have been a super honest caring POTUS. To those who said he wasn’t tough enough I say “ pay attention”.

colonial settlers from italy squatting on the americas. thats how all the pilgrims stole the land, now he wants to change the rules.

DeSantis and Rameaswani in 2028

Love you dear Governor

Heres a thought....try helping the homeless, instead of pushing them out. Like your law that they cant even sleep in public?

Homelessness is a behavior now? It is a statement on our culture, education, healthcare, and wage discreprancy. It does need a comprehensive, humanistic responsible approach.

Skyrocket rent is to blame

No fan of DeSantis by any means, but on this, yes. Squatters have no rights to other's property.

Thank you for protecting normal working people who make good decisions rather than those who make terrible decisions over their entire lives. All about helping others but not those who make continuous foolish decisions.

Didn't Donald Trump don't ok vote work 2024

Desantis is a good man and patriot!!!!

I love DeSantis. He should have continued running to be our President. I hope Trump offers him some important position like taking care of our boarders, cleaning up our streets from squatters, homeless and drug addicted.

So, the governor is out to help the wealthy and not the people truly in need?

The rest of the country should take notes from Desantis!!!!

I wish he was the republicans candidate for president. He is signing legislation. He is actually DOING things.

DeSantis is right & ppl are sick of it! Something needs to be done within the law so that this crap ends, especially for the homeowners! Thank GOD for our governor! He's one of best in America & many ppl in other states wish he was their Governor!

We need legislation to be in laymans terms and made as comercials or on oublic radio / podcast . Cause these dides got old joe on mmmmk ultra lol😮

2028? 🤔👍🏻

In Florida, the rich now have the right to not see poor people. If your job does not pay enough to rent the crappiest apartment in the city where you work, that makes you a criminal in Florida, not your boss.

Unacceptable

Well, thank God he is not going after the LGBT community. What a failure and embarrassment that was for him.

How can someone this smart have been so stupid to side with rinos? He ruined all his chances of a 2028 run just for being ignorant to what the people want.