On the morning of January 14, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office sent a small army to 2928 Magnolia Street in Oakland, California. With the house flanked by police dressed in military fatigues and an armored vehicle standing nearby, the sheriff’s men arrested two mothers after breaking the door down with a battering ram in a pre-dawn raid.

The two women are part of a collective of unhoused and marginally housed mothers called Moms 4 Housing. They, and two other mothers, had been occupying the vacant house with their children since November, though the property has remained empty for years. More than just a way to take shelter, the mothers’ residency in the empty home was a protest against the larger housing crisis that has gripped Oakland, which has some of the fastest rising rents of any city in the United States.

The home was bought in a foreclosure auction by Wedgewood Inc., a real estate investment firm that boasts of being the country’s largest “fix and flip” company. Hundreds of people had gathered the previous night after being alerted that the sheriff’s department was on their way to enforce the eviction notice.