Poznan: Conference “The cities for people – not for profit”

6th – 9th November 2015, Poznań, Poland

Greater Poland Tenants’ Association together with European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the are inviting you to the conference of tenants’ rights groups. The congress will take place in Poznań between 6th and 9th November 2015.

It has been many years since we can observe the expansion of precarity of housing condition all over the world. The neoliberal policies are forcing increasingly larger clusters of a society to outlay more and more: privatisation of common resources, welfare cuts, limiting citizens’ rights, mass evictions, gentrification and proliferation of banks on the housing market. These techniques are of international scope – the results, with varying dynamics and at different stages are discernible everywhere in the world. It is absolutely essential to create a network of solidarity in struggle for decent housing conditions. We are obliged to expose the radius of human rights violations, including the right to decent living, that shall not be aligned neither with one’s economic status nor their origin. We have to reveal the genuine character of EU and UN-Habitat policy (UN-Habitat Conference, Quito, Ecuador, October 2016) aiming to blow “the right to the city” and “the right to housing”. [Read More]

Amsterdam: ADM’s 18th Birthday Festival

official festival poster ADM Blijt FestivalThe ADM is the biggest and longest surviving cultural freehaven in the Netherlands, known over the whole world due to 18 years social and cultural renewal and hospitality. It is an organically grown village in the western harbours of Amsterdam, arising from the longing to experiment in all possible areas. The ADM is a niche in the margin of organised society. A laboratory where the arrangement of our daily lives is practised as an art form, where the development of simple and sustainable solutions are automatic and innovation is not trendy but pure necessity.
The people of this self-regulating community are closely linked to each other by the space, visions and creations they share. On the terrain live some 130 people from all ages, nationalities and walks of life. Amongst them are: children and pensioners, theatre-makers and stage-builders, inventors and technicians, dancers and musicians, actors and directors, craftsmen and -women, sailors and buccaneerss, life-lovers and ‘different-thinkers’…
We improvise with time and money, test our place in the ecosystem, tinker with human relationships and build sculptures, compositions, heat sources and means of transport using another’s waste. In a direct interaction with our environment we thus create alternative ways of living, sharing, learning and growing. [Read More]

London: Mamelon Tower squat evicted by riot cops after 6 hour showdown

Yesterday (Monday 5 October) TSG riot cops alongside bailiffs came in force to evict the Mamelon Tower squat in Kentish Town, North London, which had been occupied by “Squatters and Homeless Autonomy”. The Met’s finest meatheads met impressive barricades and concerted resistance and it took six hours for them to enter the building. Six people were arrested for “affray”. A noise demo took place yesterday evening outside the police station where they were being held. We will post further updates and calls for solidarity as we get more news. We repost below the statement by SHA on yesterday’s events, and also the statement they published when they first squatted the building. [Read More]

London: Report back from anti-gentrification fuck parade

Last Saturday over a thousand people came together at the ‘Fuck Parade’ to resist gentrification and the social cleansing in London’s East End. It was a beautiful expression of feeling put into action.

It kicked off under Shoreditch High Street arches with three or so massive music rigs, fire breathing and buzzing energy. A couple of hundred at first, mostly anarchists, squatters and social housing eviction resistors. The solid bloc continued to grow, as the informal march went through the streets chanting with flares and flash grenades, holding space and blocking roads, picking up more and more local people off the street and out of the estates as it passed. At points the demo was around a thousand people. [Read More]

Forest of Dean: Callout for support at Yorkley Court Community Farm

This morning (Sept29) two council officials entered the farm (previously on S!N) asking questions about the number of pregnant women and children on-site. We recognise this as a sign that an eviction attempt is likely to happen in the near future.

We are strengthening our defences and preparing ourselves for what may come.

We need support.
[Read More]

Staines: Four seasons wins in court

Victory!

Application for Interim Possesion by Surrey County Council rejected!

Four Seasons Community Co-operative is an off-shoot group of (the recently evicted) Runnymede Eco Village residents aka. Diggers2012 , Love Activists and Action Factory Collective.
[Read More]

UK: Free the Love Bank 5 (Poster & website)

Five Activists who had occupied Liverpool’s old Bank of England building to provide shelter and feed the city’s homeless people have been jailed for almost 3 months each. They were sentenced on Thursday 17th September 2015 at Liverpool Crown Court.

The Love Activists moved into the unoccupied building in the middle of April 2015 to set up a support centre for Liverpool’s homeless people, incorporating places to sleep, an advice centre and a street kitchen, from where they were evicted in the early hours of 12 May and the homeless activists arrested. The defendants were charged in relation to the occupation of the old bank building in Castle Street, Liverpool city centre, as part of a protest over lack of support for the homeless and government austerity. [Read More]

Updates from Calais – four camps evicted

Last week the French police evicted four migrant camps in Calais. These were the only camps in the town itself. Monday’s evictions made it clear that the migrant population in Calais would only be allowed to live in the “jungle”, an area of land on the edge of the town (note: the word ‘jungle’ comes from the Pashto ‘dzangal’, meaning ‘forest’. The name comes from the Pashtun Jungle, a forested area in Calais occupied by Afghans back in 2009, but it is no coincidence that the media has continued to use this term to describe the camps…). The current camp population has swollen to 4000 people due to tightened security at the border and the greater difficulties crossing; 3 people have died trying to cross in the past two weeks. This article is gathered from Calais Migrant Solidarity and gives an update on the latest situation over there. [Read More]

London: Sweets Way Resists. Mostafa evicted and prisoner solidarity needed!

This morning the violent thugs returned to the estate after yesterday’s brutal Sweetstopia eviction and executed their possession order against Mostafa and his family, the final original residents at Sweets Way. Solidarity actions with those arrested at 6pm.

High Court bailiffs smashed through the window of the room Mostafa was sleeping in, to forcibly remove him from his home today. The eviction leaves the family without a home, unwilling to sign for a property offered by Barnet Homes that he literally can’t get in and out of in his wheelchair. This offer would be enough of an insult, were it not already coming after three years of mistreatment of the family by Barnet Homes. [Read More]

Den Haag: Vloek 5 court case report

Today was the courtcase against the Vloek 5. The judge ordered the release of all the prisoners, and will read a verdict in two weeks. During his ‘last word’ Kwinted Keesmaat read a great text we’re publishing below.

Dear attendants

Today we are standing here before the judge because we are being suspected of using violence. According to the Public Prosecution during the eviction of free-space De Vloek cops and buses of the riot police have been smeared with paint and the police has been violated so much by this that we are being imprisoned spread over prisons in The Netherlands for already 15 days.
I have nothing to say about the accusations of squatting and violence and leave that to my lawyer. [Read More]

Dublin: Eviction in Phibsboro

This video shows the view from inside the house evicted on the last Tuesday evening June 2015 by a large gang of Garda in Dublin operating without a search warrant or eviction order.

This property had been left vacant for at least three years despite being in a reasonably habitable state. Two days previously, housing campaigners had entered it in order to reclaim it for housing purposes. [Read More]

London: Sweets Way facing estate-wide eviction

Support needed at Mostafa’s at 6am Wednesday [24th] for 2nd round of evictions!

After a brutal day, Sweetstopia was evicted, as was the People’s Regeneration Show Home, but Mostafa and the Sweets Way Resists community house remain. We expect bailiffs and police to return tomorrow (Wednesday) morning and need support. Please come to 46 Sweets Way at 6am if you can, to help keep Mostafa in his home! [Read More]