About 130 protesters marched north through the Loop this morning calling for a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures.
The group walked from the Chicago Board of Trade and stopped briefly at a Citibank branch at LaSalle and Madison streets just before 11 a.m.
“Vacant homes are a crime! Citibank should do some time!” the demonstrators chanted. “Let us live here!”
The marchers unrolled a rug and set down an easy chair and tried to set down a couch and vase before police officers stopped them, toppling the vase.
Standing at the edge of the makeshift living room, Virginia Morales described her family’s struggles to avoid foreclosure and eviction. “The process is wrong, and we need to. Reform the process that is in place,” she said
Police officers were using their bicycles as barriers to keep people from spilling into the streets as they gathered outside the bank.
The protesters arrived at Daley Plaza just before 11:30 a.m., where they again unfurled the rug and set the easy chair and couch on a stage.
Several people on the stage, speaking through megaphones, criticized banks for their role in the housing crisis and called for a moratorium on foreclosures. The rest of the crowd sat in folding chairs or gathered around the stage while bicycle police kept watch from the edge of the plaza.
The rally ended just before noon, and a few protesters carried the couch, easy chair, rug and a lamp across Washington Street and dumped them in the lobby of a Citibank branch while at least one customer used a nearby ATM.
The protesters shot videos and photos when police arrived a few minutes later. As officers loaded the furniture into a police van, the protesters chanted, “Free the couch!”