London: Occupied community centre in Kensington

Welcome to the OUR HOUSE Pop Up Community Centre!

We have occupied a building in the heart of the most expensive part of London to host a community-led occupation in protest at the Tories Housing Bill, the housing crisis and to highlight the insanity of empty properties when thousands are homeless.

This was a pop-up shop — now it’s a pop-up squat.

* 221 Brompton Road SW3 2EJ * OUR HOUSE *

OUR HOUSE Telephone : 07985669174

Our House is open to all, a family friendly space, * with Wheelchair access and ground floor Toilet! Family friendly space with Activities for kids,collectively hosted, and running for a week in the build up to the march against the Housing Bill on Sunday 13 March. We are publicly taking back empty property and puttinh it to much better use! This space is what WE make it and we need YOU to do that!

****OUR HOUSE WORKSHOP AND ACTION SCHEDULE****

Events are open to everyone! Kids space Available and wheelchair accessible space.

***Sunday 6th March***

14.00 Outreach Day in local area – Join us in speaking to locals

We are Supporting London Youth March Shout for Housing in Brixton 1-3pm

18.00 General Meeting

19.00 * Kurdish Solidarity Evening Event in support of #BreaktheSilence KURDISH SOLIDARITY DEMO

Discussion and film screening of Kilometre Zero:

**** Monday 7th ****

>13.00-15.30 BANNER MAKING WORKSHOP! Come make banners- all welcome!

>15.00 ACTION! Our House or 15.45 Latimer Road station –
At 4.00pm, Deputy Leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council and Cabinet Member for Housing, Property and REGENERATION, Cllr Rock Feilding Mellen will report back from a recent consultation designed to ignore and sideline the wishes of local residents.
Instead of protecting our homes and residential amenity, Cllr Feilding Mellen will inform the Silchester West community that the RBKC are coming to destroy their homes and wreck their way of life for ever.
We aren’t going to let this moment pass without taking some direct action to show this fascist Council that they can’t behave with impunity in their shameless land grab of North Kensington.

Please gather at Our House at 3.00pm or at Latimer Road tube station at 3.45pm to execute a “mock eviction” outside the property of a despised Tory Councillor who sits at the heart of RBKC’s hateful and evil housing policy.

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/feilding-mellen-rbkcs-social-cleansing-hitman/

>18.00 General Meeting

>19.00 RADICAL HOUSING NETWORK MEETING (open to all) http://radicalhousingnetwork.org/

**** Tuesday 8th ****

>12- 17.00pm COOPERATIVE ART WORKSHOP – Making an apple tree mural Art Installation! Could cooperative housing associations be at the heart of successful social housing?

> 16.00 IT’S TIME FOR A #PILLOWFIGHT: Join us to create protest Visuals and Props for #killthebilldemo

>18.00 General Meeting

>19.00 Civil Disobedience discussion for future actions, come join the discussion.

***** Wednesday 9th ****

>13.00 PICKET SOLIDARITY ACTION with Junior Doctors in the area. meet at OUR HOUSE at 12.

> 13.00 – ONGOING! HOUSING AND OTHER STRUGGLES ACROSS LONDON MAP DRAWING :
Come share your experiences from your area, from struggles happening – in a Wall Art Work at Our House! Led by Constantine Gras, https://latymermappingproject.wordpress.com/about/ Bring Literature/ Pictures/ Memories / Ideas and help build a London wide map!

>14.00-15.30 EVICTION RESISTANCE FOR WEST LONDON RESIDENTS : both organsing and practical skills learning

> 16.00-17.30 ‘CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS?’ Paul Watt will discuss what the London housing crisis consists of, who it effects, and how we got into this mess.

>18.00 General Meeting

> 19.00 HOUSING IS A WORKPLACE ISSUE
TRADE UNIONISTS FOR HOUSING (TUFH)
We are lay trade union activists from BECTU, GMB, NUT and Unite,campaigning on housing as a workplace issue. Come and find out what we have been doing over the past year within our unions and the wider trade union movement. discussing linking up with other unions and lay activists, also we have an exciting public event planned for April. There will be copies of the TUFH manifesto and the newly approved BECTU Housing Policy. Meeting is open to all wishing to work with the trade union movement, especially trade union members.

***** Thursday 10th *****

> 14.00-15.30 SISTERS UNCUT WORKSHOP : Members of Sisters Uncut will be leading a discussion on the effect of housing legislation on domestic violence survivors and the need to be inclusive when campaigning around these issues, keeping aware of the specific intersections that impact access to safe housing.

> 16.00-17.30 WEST LONDON DEMOLITION TOUR > Led by local housing campaigners from Grenfall Action Group and Save Earls Court Supporters Club.
Meeting at Our House 3pm or 4pm WEST BROMPTON Overground station.

> 18.00 General Meeting

> 19.00 WEST LONDON ORGANISNG MEETING : For all west london groups and individuals wanting to connect struggles and tackle

> 20.00 WESTWAY 23 MUSIC / OPEN MIC
http://www.westway23.org/

******* Friday 11th ******

> 11.00-13.00 KIDS KITCHENS : Parents bring toddlers/ children learn how to cook with your child!

> 14.00-15.30POETRY, RAP AND RESTISTANCE (lead by Potent Whisper)

> 16.00-18.30 STANDARD EVENING ACTION! The Standard Evening is back! Join us in handing out 20,000 copies of our spoof free sheet newspaper about the housing crisis and housing bill! Be a Newpaper caller for the evening!

> 19.00 Are Hipsters The Problem? Brick Lane Debates

****Saturday 12th*****

YARLSWOOD DEMO 1pm
14.00-15.30
16.00-17.30
18.00 General Meeting
19.00 TBA

****Sunday 13th****

> 12pm DEMO AGAINST THE HOUSING BILL!

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Kensington is in a borough of extreme inequality, where the average family home costs £5000 per month, and where the massive Earls Court redevelopment will see not one affordable house built on site. The housing bill threatens to force the council to sell almost 100% of their affordable houses- over 6,500 properties – and so we are creating a rare public space for housing campaigners and the local community to come together.

Radical Housing Network is a network of local housing campaigns fighting for housing justice. http://radicalhousingnetwork.org/

please share these and invite others.

Thanks and see you soon!

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MORE INFO on the action:
While property brokers buy up every square inch of our city, local authorities are forcing poor people to be housed out of London, with over 68,000 people in slum-condition temporary accommodation and millions more on council housing waiting lists. The government’s response is to push through a Housing Bill that marks the biggest attack on social housing provision we’ve ever seen.

To highlight the malicious nature of this Housing Bill on all but the richest, some of us involved in the Radical Housing Network are planning direct action. We plan to set up a social centre in a highly politically significant space. When our community centres, libraries and homes are being taken away, we can reclaim space from the elite. People experiencing and challenging the housing crisis need cultural and creative spaces to share our struggles. And we need space to explore how the right to a secure home intersects with the other things we want, need, and are proud of in our lives – how the crisis affects us all differently, but how we’re all in it together.

Over the last 18 months we have seen a number of successful significant housing occupations, from the Carpenters Estate, to Sweets Way, to the Aylesbury, highlighting the criminality of evicting long term residents to make way for private redevelopments. Now we feel its time to take action within the boulevards and avenues of the rich. We need to mount a significant attack on property profiteers, as well as uniting ourselves and supporting those who’ve not yet taken this form of action to do so.

We are inviting housing groups and everyone else to collaborate in planning and enacting this space, because we are stronger together. We also want to hear from you about ideas on how we can oppose the Housing and Planning Bill, the racist Immigration Bill, the deprivation of NHS workers, and all forms of austerity. We’d love you to join us (or send a representive from your group) in a planning meeting, or let us know how you want to be involved.

http://radicalhousingnetwork.org/
http://rabble.org.uk/our-house-occupied-community-centre-in-kensington-this-week/