Zürich (Switzerland): Juchhof squatted

By: fawda - October 31st, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

Dear humans,

We occupied an empty area today to open up a free space.
Why are we doing this?
On the one hand, superfluous money always creates new spaces that are only accessible to a few.
On the other hand, even those parts of society that think they have something to offer investors play directly into their hands. Building cooperatives are nothing more than huge heaps of capital, and are not a suitable means against the fight against real estate speculation. Intermediate use companies such as Projekt Interim are instrumentalized to prevent occupations and at the same time financially exploit already percarious people. They are nothing more than a new way of regulating the space they monitor and control.

The situation looks bleak, but time and again people fight for and win real freedom. This is what we are doing today. We are not leaving Zurich to the rich without a fight. Together we want to create a place where every person feels welcome, a place where it is easy to join in. As of today, this space stands for freedom and equality. It is a zone for encounters and a foundation for another direction. This place stands for the fight for freedom. [Read More]

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UK: The Social Centre Bulletin. The Ups and Downs of the Cwtch

By: fawda - October 16th, 2019  Filed under: News

Eight years ago, near enough to the day, a handful of activists and homeless had some plans. The rain was chucking it down as we were stood outside our goal sizing the building up. It had been sitting empty for years, neglected and falling apart, a local icon left to fade. It was a suitable candidate for a pop up social centre, with a dozen large rooms, kitchen space, a welcoming atrium and, like I say, it was bloody pouring it down. Three of the crew would be sleeping on the streets that night, the city centre location was ideal and we were wet. So we jumped the gun. On finding a way in, we left out plans to the wayside and squatted the old Odeon cinema in Manchester and named it the “Cwtch Centre”.

It would be our home for a few hours tho, as after a very exciting urban exploration we discovered that it was asbestos ridden. While we started to gather the crew together, the place echoed with the banging of the police on our fire escape entry. We informed them of our squatters rights, they smashed the huge steel doors out of their frame. I had to kick the doors open to eventually let them in and was greeted with a pistol in my face, several armed men from S019, a couple of TAU vans, dog unit and a night kip in Swindon police station. [Read More]

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UK: Chester’s homeless have had enough!

By: sisulscz - October 6th, 2019  Filed under: Announcement

726 people died on the UK’s streets last year.

Well in excess of 120,000 people applied to their local councils to be recognised as homeless in the hopes of having access to meagre support.

Meanwhile 200,000 houses sit empty. Then there are all the commercial and industrial units lying dormant and decaying.

Chester, like most places during this latest wave of austerity, has seen a sharp rise in homelessness and rough sleeping with a piss poor response from the local council, with services and social support provided in as mild and cost-effective manner possible. During the tail end of last year when the council had an official tally of 17 “street-homeless people”, the local homeless support project “ForFutures”, itself ran on a council contract, would see over a hundred different people request refuge over a couple of months.

Earlier this year, ForFutures opened up a “Homeless Assessment Centre” on the ground floor of a large, empty, and council-owned office block called Hamilton House. Opened to great fanfare, this centre was going to be a one-stop-shop to help manage and limit the swelling crisis of homelessness Chester was facing. It was supposed to be an accessible 24/7 secure space for the most vulnerable in our community, the contact point for the homeless to a council which like the rest of them across the UK constrains its support behind a register of “unintentionally homeless”.
[Read More]

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Groningen: Statement by Akerkstraat squatters to the council

By: fawda - October 2nd, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

Dear Councillors,

As the people who live in Akerkstraat 16a we are pleased to be able to speak at this needed debate about the housing shortage among students, mostly internationals, in Groningen. It is clear to us that this is a matter of urgency. Every year thousands of international students are lured to the city to come and study here. What should have been a wonderful time in a beautiful city turns out to be a tragedy for many of them, just as this year. There are not enough houses, especially ones that are affordable, in the city to accommodate all those students. At this moment hundreds of students are in the emergency shelter they are expected to leave at the end of this month. Most of them have not yet found alternative housing. [Read More]

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Utrecht: Derelict buildings squatted out of housing shortage and protest against vacancy

By: fawda - October 1st, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

Since last weekend, a group of young people have been living in the long since vacant houses at the Burgemeester Reigerstraat 48-53 in Utrecht.

The occupation is both a direct approach to a need for life – the young people are looking for housing – and a protest against the current housing policy. The action, part of a national wave, criticized Squatting and Vacancy Act from 2010 and the intention to tackle squatting even harder. “The residents are of the opinion that not squatting, but vacancy and housing shortage must be tackled”, according to a spokesman. The buildings on Burgemeester Reigerstraat have been vacant for more than five years. Owner Marcel Paping plans to demolish the four buildings and build four new buildings and retail space in their place. A parking garage is to be built under the buildings. He has the permits for his plan, except for the entrance to the basement. Many neighbours are of the opinion that a large underground car park will seriously disturb the peace and quiet in the street. Paping plans to nail up the empty buildings if the Municipality does not grant him all the permits. Half a year ago, the buildings were also squatted. Then the police went on a wrongful eviction. “Hopefully this time the police will be wise enough not to go for the owner’s trolley and go the right way”, says one of the squatters. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: Oops we did again! Amstel 45 squatted.

By: fawda - October 1st, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

Sunday, 22-09-19 we successfully squatted the building at Amstel 45. The owner of this building is the biggest real-estate owner of Amsterdam and an speculator. There have been buildings owned by Veldhuijzen squatted before, Amstelkade 20 (2016), Admiraal de Ruijterweg 76 (2008). Johannes Cornelis Martinus Veldhuijzen is the owner of 512 properties in Amsterdam, he has more buildings on his name than Prince Bernhard van Oranje Nassau! (see for details the Parool article mentioned below). We know the building has been empty for 2 years and currently there is a building stop, which means the owner is prohibited to work on the building any further and he also doesn’t have any plans for the building at this moment.
We are against vacancy, leaving buildings empty and left to rot, and we squat because of vacancy! During the first week of occupation, we didn’t have any contact with the owner. Wednesday the 26 of September, we received the court papers for a fast civil procedure. His story had a lot of inconsistency and no concrete plans and because of this and the new squatting law that is coming, we decided it’s a good time to fight back! We went to court on the 1st of October and now we are waiting for the verdict, the 15th of October. The owner himself did not show up in court and he still has shown no willingness to communicate with us in any way. Will keep you guys updated!
[Read More]

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Germany: October 18-29, squatting Days Freiburg

By: fawda - September 30th, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

Squatting Days Freiburg: October 18-29, 2019. Do-It-Together: squatters convention, festival and other resistances

We would like to invite you to extend the summer in Freiburg and participate in the squatting days, to celebrate the birthdays of the KTS and the InfoShop and to come together for a libertarian outlook.

Freiburg is a small town in the southern part of the black forest, where official maps draw the borders between Switzerland, Germany and France. It is a friendly region between the Rhine nuclear power plants, major economic logistic points and the armament industry of the black forest and which lends itself well to various subversive activities. Moreover, winter does not arrive as quickly as in the rest of the republic. Our squatting days want to focus on housing and gentrification issues, but we find ourselves in times where struggles and resistance can only be effective through an intersectional approach and squats represent only a part of the necessary anti-fascist, feminist and anti-capitalist struggles. [Read More]

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Groningen: Former Heijkens building squatted by students

By: fawda - September 29th, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

A few days ago, a group of students occupied the former Heijkens building on Akerkstraat. The youngsters who are looking for housing are trying to raise the issue of the national housing shortage. The squatting action is part of a national campaign in the context of the nine-year squatting ban. “During this time, it was mainly squatters who had to suffer, while landowners and speculators get away with vacancy. So the ban is not a solution to the housing shortage”, according to the students’ spokesman.

Since 1 October 2010, the Squatting and Vacancy Act applies. The purpose of this law was to reduce the vacancy rate in the Netherlands. However, research commissioned by the Ministry of Security and Justice and the Ministry of the Interior shows that the effects of the vacancy policy are hardly visible. At the beginning of this year, some 96,500 m² of office space was vacant in the city of Groningen, half of which is not even for rent or sale. The vacancy rate of office buildings in the Netherlands has almost doubled. [Read More]

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Berlin: Tu Mal Wat! VilLA54 squatted

By: fawda - September 28th, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

During the Tu-Mal-Wat action days, we squatted the old brewery in Lansberger Allee 54. Where old east berliner houses meet new and sterile luxury accommodations, is this beautiful building, that’s already empty since seven years. Instead of having a non-hierarchical, self organized neighborhood space, until now, speculative vacancy was overtaking.

This times are over now. Whilst city council for construction, Florian Schmidt, wishes to leave 10% of this complex for non commercial usage, we wont just wait until the politicians act and take the matter into our own hands. We are not interested in the profit logic of the big companies but in a place free from ruling, where everybody is welcome who wants to participate. Weather neighbors, illegalized or societal marginalized people, initiatives and groups which are looking for rooms and also just people who are curious. [Read More]

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Athens (Greece): Anarchists Take Riot Police by Surprise and Reoccupy Evicted Squat in Exarcheia

By: xxx - September 25th, 2019  Filed under: News

On Friday September 20, 2019, on the three years anniversary of the occupation of the building that became known as “Spirou Trikoupi 17 Squat,” housing refugees in the heart of Exarcheia (Athens, Greece), anarchists were not deterred by the fact that the Squat had been evacuated on Monday August 26, 2019, following a massive police raid and that the neighbourhood of Exarchia has been turned into a “militarized” zone, with constant riot police attacks against people in the area and social centers. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: New move from the municipality on the squatted bowling in Noord

By: fawda - September 24th, 2019  Filed under: News

Urban resort planning to evict a squat. The squatting community needs your help!

Urban Resort is currently making plans to evict a squat in the North of Amsterdam, called ‘the Krakers Bowlwerk’ (squatted in March 2016). The municipality who owns the building asked them to put a broedplaats (breeding grounds) in place, and Urban Resort gladly said yes to this business opportunity.

They are on a mission to clear the area and make it ready for richer tenants, a process called gentrification. Here’s the catch though: Urban Resort had a lot of ties to the squatting scene, so we will be able to stop them. They were founded by our comrades after all at the time of the squatting ban in 2005. With the aim to safeguard sub-cultural niches, that we as a community created. Niches that they are now helping to break down. [Read More]

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Utrecht: Squatting during national day of action – police proceed to unlawful eviction

By: fawda - September 15th, 2019  Filed under: News

The national day of action against the ban on squatting was also held in Utrecht today. A group of squatters has just added the vacant building at Reactorweg 164-172 to the housing stock. Help with the occupation is welcome, so come along!

The building, owned by De Waal Beheer, has been empty for quite some time now and plans for use by the owner seem to be lacking. While the CDA and VVD in their own-initiative law are working on new legislation to protect property owners even better against squatters, this action shows that squatting is still the only effective means for people searching for housing to combat vacancy. [Read More]

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