Housing Policy

What I Learned Shadowing California's Katana-Wielding Anti-Squatter Enforcers

California's failure to eject squatters from the properties they've seized undermines the state's new housing laws.

Christian Britschgi | 5.19.2026 10:35 AM

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(Christian Britschgi)

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. 

In this week's newsletter, I wanted to share a recent feature story I wrote for Reason about the strange world of California's professional squatter removal services. 

For some time in February this year, I was camped out in an Airbnb in Oakland, California, shadowing James Jacobs, founder of ASAP Squatter Removal, as he went about his work of reclaiming properties from squatters with his trusty katana.  

Rent Free Newsletter by Christian Britschgi. Get more of Christian's urban regulation, development, and zoning coverage.

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It was a fascinating story to report out, and one that involved being in slightly dicier situations than this housing and zoning reporter is typically used to. The experience taught me a lot about the extreme edges of California's housing crisis and the limits of what Reason will allow me to expense for a story. (Body armor, yes. A sword, no.) 

Truly, we are living in Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash. 

The reporting process yielded a few observations that didn't make it into the final draft, one of which I'll share here. 

A major setting of the story is an apartment building off Oakland's International Boulevard that had been overrun by squatters. Jacobs had been hired by the owner to attempt to remove them. 

Running down the middle of International Boulevard is a dedicated lane for the new Tempo bus rapid transit line. The lane was completed in 2020 for a total cost of $232 million. 

That's a significant investment in new public transit infrastructure. Its presence means that properties along International Boulevard now qualify for new transit-oriented height and density allowances created by last year's Senate Bill 79. 

Thanks to S.B. 79, one can now build a six-story apartment building, at a density of........

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