October 19th: European Day of Action for Housing

by: dolph-l - October 15th, 2013
Housing for people, not for profit!

We are confronted with a brutal European austerity regime which continues to transform our livelihoods into financial assets for global speculation, which violates the universal right to housing every day, which destroys democracy at all levels and has no socially acceptable solution for the crisis of capitalism. Not only since the crisis it is the poor and excluded who get hit by this system especially hard: un- and underemployed, homeless, precarious workers, immigrants, Roma, students, single mums, and everybody who is not willing to fit into a capitalist mode of reproduction. This group is now becoming the majority of society.

How the capitalist systems plays out in the diverse housing markets in Europe might be different, but the underlying logic of neoliberal politics, privatization and financialization of our homes is the same.
This is why we aim to stand up, to unite our struggles and to broaden our movements. We will not let us be divided by neoliberal politics.

Join our struggle on October 19th!


Amsterdam: 18th O, 20h: Public discussion about the precarisation of housing in the Netherlands, the breaking down of the social housing sector, the suppression of free cultural spaces and the right to the city. Organised by the Bond Precaire Woonvormen (Union of people in a precarious housing situation) and social political centre Op de Valreep. Location: Op de Valreep, Polderweg 620, Amsterdam Oost.
19th O, 14h: Dance-demothrough Amsterdam city for preservation of social political centre Op de Valreep and for a free and social (underground) Amsterdam.

Berlin: 15th O, 18:30h: ,Discussion Housing in Europe. Same problems, shared struggles, TU Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, room H-0111
19th O, 14h: Halay Dance – Dancing against rising rents and forced evictions, Kottbusser Tor

Budapest: 19th O, 14h:March of Empty Houses, Deak Ferenc tér

Dublin: 19th, 14h, Customs House Dublin City Centre

Düsseldorf: 18th O, 20h: 1. Meeting of Housing Activists of the Rhine-Ruhr-Region, K4, Kiefernstraße 4, Düsseldorf Flingern-Süd

Dortmund: 14th O, 20h:Cities for People not for Profit, Taranta Babu, Humboldtstr. 44, Dortmund

Geneva: 17th-19th O,Tribunal des Evictions 2013

Lorient: 19th, 15h, Assembly, Place Jules Ferry Lorient

Lissabon: 19th O, 10h:ASSEMBLEIA DA HABITAÇÃO, Palco montado na PRAÇA DA FIGUEIRA em LISBOA

Malaga: National meeting of PAH

Milan: 15th O, 21h , Public Assemblee, Piazza Loggia dei Mercanti, with no tav no muos and stopdesahucios madrid
19th O, 6am, special train to Rome for action at Piazza San Giovanni, 2h

Paris: 19th O, 14h: Journée européenne pour le droit au logement et à la ville et contre la spéculation, Place de la République

Poznań: 19th O, 12 – 12:20h press conference at Zemsta coffee-/infoshop, Fredry 7,
12:30 – 13h Demonstration from Al. Marcinkowskiego 11 to office of NeoBank

Rome: 19th O, 14h,sollevazione generale, Piazza San Giovanni

Warsaw: Conference ‘Housing Coalition: co-operators, home-owners, tenants. Warsaw by citizens’ at ‘Koło’

more details soon…

We demand:

  • Instead of placing the costs of failed financial speculation on ordinary citizens in the form of illegitimate debt and human misery, we demand that all such illegitimate debt must be cancelled. Instead of continuing the plundering of our societies for the payment of this illegitimate debt the real use-values of our houses and urban infrastructure must be given back to society. The EU market-driven policies and competition rules cannot be continued.
  • We demand legal protection against evictions and the transformation of foreclosed homes into social rental housing, affordable and secure for the inhabitants living there.
  • In housing markets dominated by tenements and especially for low-income people, the skyrocketing rents mean displacement. To stop this process of gentrification rents must be frozen immediately and
  • land and real estate speculation has to be ended.
  • The occupation of vacant buildings, especially speculative vacancies, has to be legalized.
  • Public and social housing has to be constructed to decommodify real estate.
This demand can be practically expressed  and partly enforced by blockades of forced evictions, occupations and other creative forms of civic resistance.Let’s build an active coalition for the right to housing and the city across Europe!

Let’s  take back our houses, land and cities by coordinating direct action on Oct. 19 2013!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,