Shared with thanks from Enough 14 /Squat.net
Squat solidarity! This MayDay squatters from across the U.K. have come together to co-ordinate decentralised actions across the country to highlight our plight and address our needs. Both residential and commercial buildings have been occupied to provide housing for ourselves and the others left high and dry during this time of crisis, and banners have been dropped in support by squats not yet facing imminent eviction. Land has been taken to repurpose for clean open space and food, and food distribution is taking place to aid all who are struggling.
Originally published by Squat Net.
Due to the COVID-19 crisis, emergency legislation was introduced and put a stay to all evictions for 90 days. However, it took just three weeks for the judges to surrender to the pressure from bailiffs, landlords and banks, and amend the law. Squatting cases will continue to be heard via phone, and bailiffs are now again smashing through our doors the way they always have – but this time we’re in the middle of a global pandemic and it’s scarier than ever before.
Evictions make us sick. In both the metaphorical and physical sense. The government that we didn’t choose values landlords’ and millionaire owners’ property laws higher than public health or our lives and the lives of people we love. We recognise though that it’s not a matter of choosing a “better” government as for us, it ends up being the same. We are a collective of communities living on the margins of society. Some of us are BIPOC, migrants, refugees, queer and trans people. Some are people living with disabilities, managing various health conditions, healing from trauma and domestic abuse. All of us are building our own refuges, homes and chosen families. COVID-19 has only magnified our already existing health, housing and power inequalities.
We find further discrimination in the illegal evictions that have taken place in these last weeks, as well as the well-evidenced police harassment of those of no fixed abode or street homeless – despite the lockdown rules not applying to those without homes. The government plan to house the homeless has proven to be worthless as people find themselves not able to get a spot, or treated like dirt when they do. State provision has already failed so many. Councils are running out of money, all the while council housing sits empty by the thousands. Specialist services such as domestic violence survivor support and LGBTQI+ housing and support services are fighting to be able to offer much needed refuge. Meanwhile it is estimated that the number of long-term empty homes in England now exceeds 226,000 (this figure is significantly higher if taking commercial properties into account).
The precarity we face is the same precarity lots of other people will recognise – it’s living payslip to payslip in insecure housing. It’s having little to no savings, little to no social network and sweating to get benefits that barely cover necessities. Government’s “solution” to make receiving universal credit easier and suspending evictions (which will only postpone them) is a temporary fix. It won’t solve the crisis that started way before the pandemic did. Some say COVID-19 is a crisis for capitalism. We say: to be so, it would have to destroy or at least scratch any of the structures that stay exactly the way they’ve been, the way they’ve been designed to be. It’s us – squatters and renters – who get hit the hardest while landlords enjoy their mortgage holidays and property owners fill out eviction papers.
We will not ask permission to find a safe place to sleep and stay alive. We will sleep wherever we can and want to. Whether in one of the 837272819191? empty buildings or abandoned unused land plots lying around or take up secret corners on OUR streets, if that’s the place we find the most safe. We will survive in the ways we need to and know.
We can’t just see this as a return to “normal”, and like all other aspects of our lives, we need to forge new paths and refuse to be crushed by a crumbling capitalism trying desperately to maintain its grip on the population. Our actions today are not those of politely asking to be reconsidered by the state, or begging to have the amendment overturned. We’re not asking for their kindness as we already know they’ve got none for us. We acted today because for us, solidarity means attack – attack on the legal amendment and the idea of housing as a commodity.
Demand space to stay safe. Take it if you have to.
Squatters across the UK, May 1, 2020.
Post-action report from one crew in London:
On Friday we squatted a disused residential block to house ourselves and others, and we were prepared to fight for it. In light of the amendment to Practice Direction 51Z allowing squatters to be evicted, we decided to attack. We will always be targets of the law. The law does not respect us, why should we respect the law? Our target today was the heinous law criminalising residential squatting. However once we gained access to the building we discovered the council had stripped and smashed each flat to make them uninhabitable. In this situation and in the reality of COVID-19, we decided to leave. In usual circumstances, our way would be to fix what the council has destroyed, with time and collaboration this would be possible – this time, we decided it’s not safe for us and others. This estate is in one of the most deprived boroughs in the country, and the council continues to claim they’re lacking resources. We saw and continue to see with our own eyes that these resources exist, they are just not being used by design.
The first flat we found our way into was in a fixable state, almost liveable. As we continued further into the block the flats we opened were more and more fucked, every last bit of wire stripped, and the fixtures smashed.
“We need to build more housihng they say, smash up this beautiful bathroom they do”
People squatting are often threatened with criminal damage charges. These images show the common injury and assault that councils and corporates inflict on our precious housing.
We are not discouraged, quite the opposite. Our successful action today encourages us, and we hope encourages others, to continue opening residentials, knowing that through mutual support we will one day we will find the one that we call home. (We are pleased to hear that another residential building was taken in south London and continues to be held).
Fuck Section 144, fuck the amendment to PD51Z, fuck the law, squat the world.
– signed: The Resi-rectors
The Free 