This is just one of our articles referencing the financial crisis, crash of the housing market, subprime, and more:

Irony strikes again as opportunists are taking advantage of other opportunists. Squatters are taking possession of foreclosed homes. Invoking their rights as ‘tenants’ nobody is willing to come forth to dispute the fact, and banks (the other opportunists) as actually paying squatters to leave. The situation seems ironic to me. California has seen the problem more than other states, although Ohio sent some reports. Banks did not pay the original owners to leave. In fact, after some banks like Countrywide and HSBC added additional charges during bankruptcy they compounded the problem for homeowners. Of course many owners just gave up, without bankruptcy. I can imagine the response if the bank asked the former owner to verify that the current squatter is not a tenant.