London: Frestonia Squatters Who Declared Independence from the UK in 1977

By: dolph-l - November 1st, 2014  Filed under: essay, Interviews

From Vice Magazine by Harry Sword

In 1977, squatters on Freston Road, Notting Hill, in London, declared independence from the British state. Facing eviction by the Greater London Council (GLC), the community figured the best way to evade the constraints imposed on them was to just free themselves of those constraints altogether. So they lobbied the UN and established a 1.8-acre microstate-“The Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia”-complete with its own postage stamps, visas, and passports. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: The Kraak Spreek Uur, autonomous squatting assistance

By: xxx - June 25th, 2014  Filed under: Interviews

An interview with Rogier from the Eastern KSU and Maks from the Student KSU, in Amsterdam (Wertheim park, July 28th, 2013). The interviewers are Y & Z, two Frenchies involved in the squatting movement in Paris. You also can find a French translation of the interview on the French pages of Squat!net.
[Read More]

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Oakland: Boat Squatters Face Eviction

By: sisulscz - April 7th, 2014  Filed under: Interviews

In September of 2013, thirty boat squatters floating at the Jack London Aquatic Park were served with eviction notices. They had thirty days to clear out or else their boats would be impounded and scrapped. An ad-hoc committee of the EPA, state police, and OPD formed a campaign to clean up the waterfront. Instead of dealing with the severe pollution of diesel emissions at the port or raising sunken ships, they targeted the boat community. The city of Oakland had decided that the small boat community was too unsavory for the upcoming condo developments to look at from their 18th story windows. The city evicted these squatters from the Jack London Aquatic Park, which is right along the Oak St edge of the 5th Avenue Development Project. Fireworks sat down with one of the evicted boat squatters who told us about boat squatting, the eviction process and its connections to rapid gentrification in Oakland.
[Read More]

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Camden, London: Leisure Centre Update

By: dolph-l - February 19th, 2014  Filed under: Interviews, News

Squatters have taken over a leisure centre that has been left empty for two years, pledging to turn it into a place for the community.

A group of 14 people have taken up residency in the Mornington Sports Centre, in Arlington Road, which has been vacant since being sold off by the council.

The building was due to be turned into private homes, but developers have been slowed down by wrangling over planning permission.  [Read More]

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Camden, London: Leisure Centre soon to be community space from Bohemia squatters

By: dolph-l - February 7th, 2014  Filed under: Interviews, News

A group of squatters have moved into a leisure centre left empty for two years after Camden Council sold it off. The Mornington Sports Centre in Arlington Road, Camden Town, is set to be turned into new private homes, but developers have been slowed down by wrangling over planning permission.

Squatters who call themselves the North London Squatting Collective say they will turn it into a place for plays and workshops until the new owners are ready to start building work. Members of the same group were recently involved in the occupation of the Friern Barnet Library and The Bohemia Community Centre in Barnet. [Read More]

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Crete (Greece): Interview with a comrade from Evagelismos Squat

By: sisulscz - December 28th, 2013  Filed under: Interviews

Greece has a long history of anti-authoritarian struggle that has provided inspiration for anarchists across the globe. Recently, I spent time in Greece to learn from comrades there about their experiences in anti-authoritarian organization and in particular establishing squats and self-organized spaces as centers of resistance, or autonomous zones. What follows is an interview with Carpe diem, from Evagelismos squat in Heraklion, Crete.
[Read More]

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Southwark, London: Interview with occupiers of the residential building on Park Street

By: dolph-l - November 2nd, 2013  Filed under: Interviews

Nestled in a quiet street between the river and Borough Market, surrounded by expensive butchers, wine bars and offices for start-up PR companies and various institutional offshoots of the Globe Theatre sits 21-23 Park Street. The nearly 200 year old building originally housed managers at the nearby Anchor Brewery, but was sold to Southwark Council who used it as part of their housing stock.

The building made headlines last week as news that the council was auctioning off the property with a reserve of  £2.25 million earned it the title of “the most expensive council house in Britain”. On Monday, just as news that the property had been sold for  £2.96 million began circulating, it also became clear that the building had been occupied by local residents, some of whom are part of a new mutual support group called Housing Action Southwark & Lambeth, in an attempt to prevent the sale of yet more public housing. Having attempted to identify a number of possible offences, it became clear that police had no legal recourse to arrest the occupants, and they left. [Read More]

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Dublin: Political squat facing eviction in Grangegorman

By: dolph-l - October 30th, 2013  Filed under: Interviews

“300,000 empty houses in Ireland, 5,000 people homeless”

A group of political squatters in Dublin are facing eviction from a row of empty, unused, rotting houses in Lower Grangegorman. We got a chance to speak to them and hear their side of the story. They are calling for people to come and help them resist eviction from Wednesday onwards.

After the arrival of Gardaí on Thursday and Friday (24th & 25th October) squatters in a row of occupied empty houses in Lower Grangegorman are facing eviction from their homes. They are calling for supporters to gather at the house to show solidarity and help them to resist this invasion of their home. [Read More]

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UK: Is Mike Weatherley Dead Yet (a brief interview)

By: sisulscz - March 10th, 2013  Filed under: Interviews, News

Some stories enrage you because there shouldn’t have to be anything more to say: no National Debate or serious frowny faces on Question Time. The HIV-positive asylum seeker and her 10-month-old child who starved to death in a Westminster flat last March. The teenager who set himself on fire in a council office in December after they refused to find him a home.

And now there’s 35-year-old homeless man Daniel Gauntlett, who died of hypothermia in Aylesford last week on the porch of an empty bungalow that he could not enter without facing arrest and a criminal record.
[Read More]

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Netherlands: Conversation with filmmaker João Romão on Dutch squats

By: sisulscz - June 11th, 2012  Filed under: Interviews

By Our man in Amsterdam
A new documentary on the squatters’ movement by João Romão, a Portuguese economist and activist living in Amsterdam, has just been released. Squatted Freedom, a one-hour limited-budget film, combines archival footage and interviews with current and former squatters to examine the history and politics of the movement as well as the wave of recent, violent evictions of squats in Amsterdam.

Squatted Freedom is a fascinating film. The story of the squatters’ movement, past and present, is both captivating and inspiring. Violent confrontations between police and squatters have been taking place since the 1980s and continue into the present. Squatted Freedom reaches its climax during an intense standoff and eventual confrontation between squatters and riot police attempting to evict a prominent Amsterdam squat, a scene which Romão and his colleagues were lucky enough to capture on film. [Read More]

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New York City: An interview with Rob Robinson from Picture the Homeless and Take Back the Land Movement

By: xxx - January 2nd, 2012  Filed under: Interviews

Published in “Brisbane From Below” n°1 (Brisbane, 2011).

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and how you became involved with Picture the Homeless?

No problem. I became involved with Picture the Homeless after spending 10 months in a NYC shelter. I was advocating within that shelter for better maintenance conditions, adherence to rules and better food. The director advised me to take my work to a higher level and I joined something called the New York City Coalition for the Continuum of Care (NYCCCoC). This group makes up 33% of the vote on how some 60-80 million USD are spent on homeless services. Picture the Homeless had access to the email list of (NYCCCoC) and I started to receive emails about the work they were doing. I showed up at a housing meeting in November 2006, liked what I heard and became a member. [Read More]

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Ontario (Canada): An Interview with John from Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)

By: xxx - January 2nd, 2012  Filed under: Interviews

Published in “Brisbane From Below” n°1 (Brisbane, 2011).

Justice, Dignity, Resistance: An Interview with John from Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and how you became involved with OCAP?

I was a worker at a factory in Ontario in the 1980s and, after being made unemployed, I helped form a union of the unemployed. In 1990, this organization helped out in the campaign that led to the formation of OCAP. [Read More]

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