The Lord of Squat: Mark Guerette Got Busted for Putting Families in Foreclosed Homes

Mark pleaded "no contest" in November 2010 to organized fraud, a felony. His lawyer was willing to fight the charges, but Mark said he didn't want to risk ending up in jail and leaving his wife and kids stranded without a husband and father. Circuit Judge Matthew Destry sentenced him to two years of probation and 100 community service hours. One of the stipulations of his probation was that he could not file any more claims of adverse possession. None of his former tenants came forward to collect restitution.

By this time, Mark's story was of national interest. On November 8, 2010, the New York Times published a story about his adventures in adverse possession, with the headline "At Legal Fringe, Empty Houses Go to the Needy." Fabian Ferguson and Juslaine Charles, who moved to another one of Mark's houses after being kicked out of the one they found with Ed and Shelly, were the center of the story. In the days after its publication, TV stations, reporters, and photographers appeared at their doorstep. Fabian refers to it as the "New York Times incident."

Michael McElroy

Mark Guerette

Stefan Kamph

An uncertain future faced Melesia Dubose and her granddaughter, Samairah, when they were evicted in January from the house they rented from Mark Guerette.

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More About

• North Lauderdale
• Terry Smith
• Mark Guerette
• Coral Springs
• Foreclosures

By now, the tenants were on their own to face the banks. When Mark heard about Terry Smith's eviction in January, he expressed little sympathy for Terry's family. "They were living rent-free for more than six months," he said. "They shouldn't really be complaining."

It's true that the family saved thousands since Mark's lawyer advised him to stop collecting rent. But in Terry's mind, his rent-free months were a small atonement for being conned into thinking the house was within his reach.

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work...

Once again, Ed and Shelly Nichols had nowhere to go. They stopped paying rent at Mark's request in April 2010. Later, a man from the bank came and offered them a check for a thousand dollars to hand over the keys and leave the house. This is a trifling nicety offered by banks to give the appearance of a transaction, so that evictions will go smoothly. Ed and Shelly swept the house broom-clean and moved back in with Ed's mom. They piled back onto the couch one evening to watch Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, and toward the end, Ed felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck with a jolt of recognition. The man who had given them a check to leave their home was on the screen, doing the same thing with a family in Miami. The man from the bank had a neutral expression, his tone patient but unyielding.

After the movie ended, Michael Moore was not there to bring light to Ed and Shelly's problems. He could not highlight some grave injustice that had robbed them of a home. Once again, they were simply another family without enough money.

He has the power to restore, the power to forgive, the power to cleanse you of all your sins!

"Yes!" Mark says, now as clean-shaven as he'll ever be. He stands up in church: his vestments wool slacks and an ironed shirt, a golden-ringed hand raised toward the ceiling of Grace Family Worship Center in Coral Springs. His other arm is around his wife, who holds out her palms, opening the life before her like a book. And now they're singing, praising, saying Jesus, and there's an eight-piece band and somebody in the back row wails, just straight-up wails, until the priest comes over to hold her, and everybody sways, hands are clapping, and Yes, Jesus, and they feel him here in the room...

Mark's story doesn't end in a victory: no great wealth, no accolades, no more houses for the needy. It's not a tragedy or a comedy — and it's certainly not part of the endless upward trajectory that people associate with the American dream. He avoided jail, and he tries to stave off his own foreclosure day by day. He says that after paying for his legal defense, Saving Florida Homes actually lost him money. But nobody has ever told him that adverse possession is illegal, and not all of his former tenants think of themselves as victims. A few of them have been able to work out temporary rental agreements with the banks.

Mark thinks about the future, and what his role in it will be. He has a new project that he's not ready to discuss yet. "I've never done things conventionally," he says. "Whenever my pastor talks about risk, he looks at me."