On September 25, 2005, Pretoriusstraat 43 was squatted by the Amsterdam-Oost squatting group as a protest against long-term vacancy, criminal money laundering practices and real estate speculation.
For 18 years the house has been a place for a living group on the upper floors, and in 2008, after 3 years of residence and the eviction of Pretoriusstraat 28, Joe’s Garage moved to the Pretoriusstraat 43 ground floor.
The Amsterdam-Oost squatting group has now been present in the Pretoriusstraat for more than 20 years. Joe’s Garage is a political / social center, run by a broad volunteer collective. Independent, in solidarity and non-profit. A place where the ‘cold wind from the market’ does not blow, a meeting place for many.
Joe’s is also 18 years old, with more than 1800 (people’s) kitchens (Voku’s), more than 1000 openings of the give-away shop, countless film evenings, music performances, language cafes, the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and of course, every Tuesday evening for 18 years, the housing / squatting assistance hour (KSU Oost) for help & info. [Read More]
Amsterdam: 18 years Pretoriusstraat 43 and Joe’s Garage
Amsterdam: Entertainment centre on Jan van Galenstraat squatted
We squatted Jan van Galenstraat 24, to prevent its demolition and to repurpose this building as a place for immediate housing and an autonomous social center.
The people that profit from capitalism enrich themselves in times of disaster. Right now we are in a housing crisis where people are forced to live on the street because the housing market is being used as a tool to exploit people and make private investors richer every day. The municipality and developers left a perfectly fine building empty for 7 years, and now they want to destroy the building to build unaffordable yuppie flats. This new neighborhood they want to build, the Marktkwartier, is going to be unaffordable for most and will drive up prices for the rest of the neighborhood. We are fed up with the municipality’s overly expensive housing plans for the city and want to actively fight against these bullshit gentrification projects that are based on wasting common resources for private profit. We need houses right now and we won’t rely on any government or investor to provide us with the bare minimum. we’re not gonna wait for affordable housing to magically appear. we take what we need, by squatting this building we instantly create a home and a space that benefits the neighborhood instead of tearing it apart. [Read More]
Netherlands: Vogelvrij Newsletter #2
Vogelvrij brings you a bunch of news from squats all around the Netherlands. There is always space for more news in the newsletter, so mail us your updates or publish them on a open publishing platform such as Indymedia.nl, or send your statements to Squat.net, and announce your events on Radar.squat.net. [Read More]
Amsterdam: open call in solidarity with Villa Fuerte hearing
In 2010 the squatting ban was introduced. In theory, this law was created to criminalize squatting whilst fighting against houses being empty. In reality, its purpose was to please some politicians and their questionable neoliberal agenda. We see that there is no political will to fight emptiness, the local governments never put any effort into finding the owners that keep their houses empty. This law has only been used to evict squatters and make them homeless, while still many houses are left empty. In June 2022, another new law has been put into practice. It had as its goal to shorten the time span between the announcement of eviction and the moment of the actual eviction. By doing this they take away the rights of the squatters to legally defend themselves. Now after one year of this law existing in Amsterdam, we feel the repression. We are worried about how the hearings are going and how unjust their practice is. The way squatters are being evicted now is not through a court case but through a criminal hearing. The judge commissioner (RC) is the one to decide if the squatters will be evicted or not. To get all the information for the case, the RC invites the officer of justice who is an investigator cop, her name is Petra van Laeren. There is nobody to witness how these hearings go, it is not a public court case so no media or people interested in the case can be there. We, the squatters in Amsterdam, are starting to see that these hearings are a joke of justice. We figured out that there is a connection between the RC and the officer of justice, showing that they know each other better than just from the court. In the hearings, intimidation is going on, cops are waiting in front of the room to take pictures of the squatters. It is the same people taking the same decisions all the time behind closed doors and the decisions are not publicly posted. It is unfair that we have to blindly go to these hearings under their conditions. To not have an audience, no media, nothing is published. It is a blur of what goes on in these office rooms and how the decisions are being made. Justice is out of balance and we are mad about it. [Read More]
Amsterdam: House squatted on Herengracht 377, Villa Fuerte blijft!
Cops came by during the reveal at Herengracht 377. The cops left but still want to come back for a speed eviction tomorrow. Support needed in coming days! After long hours of waiting in the heat, cops said they have legal grounds to speed-evict, but won’t do it because they didn’t have the capacity today (thanks to the people that showed up for support in front of the door). Neighbors said they didn’t see or heard the squatters these past few days, so police want to speed-evict for catching squatters red-handed, but the squatters showed them proofs that they had been staying for several days already. The cops don’t care and said they can come back anytime for speed eviction in the morning or during the day of the 26th. Stay alert and come when you can! Villa Fuerte needs to stay.
Statement Villa Fuerte
Today on Sunday the 25th of June, we announce that we have squatted this house on Herengracht 377 in Amsterdam. This place is owned by Ella Marina Nicolette Habsburg-Lothringen, member of a royal dynasty, who turned it into a Yoga center for her rich friends and that is now left empty. [Read More]
Amsterdam: Squatters Takland occupy adjacent building
Today we have expanded Takland. After we squatted the building at Taksteeg 8 on King’s Day – renamed Housing Day – today it is the turn of the adjacent building Taksteeg 6, which has also been vacant for years. Come and support Takland!
After declaring our independence from the state, they opened the hunt for us. The first time we saw them in court, we won. In doing so, we have ensured that red-handed is once again a means of struggle: the judge forbade eviction in the act if the police do not actually catch the squatter in the act. The second time we saw them in court, they punished us. The judge-commissioner, Eduard Messer, agreed with the owner. The judge and the officer are biased, feel contempt for the people in society hardest hit by the housing crisis, and don’t follow their own rules. Takland should be evicted by Thursday. But Takland is stronger than the state. Takland fights back. [Read More]
Netherlands: what happened in May in some squats
Vogelvrij Newsletter #1
Of course these news are not complete, we just collected the different things we heard about and the information we could find. If there is something you would like to see in our next newsletter or if you notice that we got some information wrong, send us an email! [Read More]
Amsterdam: new place squatted on Tweede Kostverlorenkade
Today on Monday the 29th of May, we announce that we have squatted this apartment on Tweede Kostverlorenkade in Amsterdam. We are a group of people from different ages and places, who resort to squatting because we have no other option.
This place is owned by the social housing company Rochdale, that has been leaving it empty since August. Our action is both a political action and a way to find housing. We squat because it is getting almost impossible to get access to affordable housing in Amsterdam. Today, there are 53 000 less social housing apartments than in 2003. That is why our action is also a political statement. We think it is scandalous that apartments stay empty while people have to sleep in the street and we are against the reduction of social housing opportunities. [Read More]
Amsterdam: AFGA Squats Kanaalstraat 128
Statement by AFGA after squatting Kanaalstraat 128, owned by the family Uit den Boogaard.
On the 14th of May, we revealed Villa Mina to the world. This beautiful house has been vacant since at least 2017. The Anarcha-Feminist Group Amsterdam (AFGA) has been an active part of the squatting scene here for a few years.
The time has now come to find a house specifically for WLINTA* (Women, Lesbian, Intersex, Non-binary, Trans, Agender) people and to find our space. We desire a house free of sexism, machoism, transphobia, etc while more WLINTA* people are finding themselves without homes or unable to pay their rent around us. This building is thus a home for WLINTA* people only, and the new political space for AFGA.
The lack of affordable housing and the rising cost of living has made it increasingly difficult for working-class people to survive. Many of us live from paycheck to paycheck. Years of austerity policies and cuts in public services like social housing have created this “crisis”. This was a political choice, which has had fatal consequences. [Read More]
Amsterdam: Store squatted on Kalverstraat on kingsday. Takland founded
Yesterday on the birthday of the king, there was a suspicious puppetshow in Taksteeg, a side street from the busy shopping street of Kalverstraat. In this puppet show, the mayor, the king and a member of parliament were talking about how to make the city more wealthy. Their conclusion, in six months, all of the people in the city should be evicted and all of their homes should be converted to hotels. They were so happy with this plan that they started partying to an André Hazes junior techno remix. At this party, the MP sneaked out and went to the people, the MP told the people about their plans, and pleaded for a revolution and the beheading of the king. After a lot of screaming and rioting of the people, the guillotine was brought out, where the king met his faith, and the people reclaimed their city.
After this revolution, another city was also being reclaimed. Right above the puppet show, a banner which read “geen woning geen koning” (no home no king) was dropped. An old store had been squatted, right in the rich tourist and yuppy center of Amsterdam. The building has been empty for more than three years. The cops came, asked a neighbour how long it had been empty and told the squatters that they were not going to speed evict, and the regular procedure will happen. [Read More]
Amsterdam: squatters of Russian billionaire’s estate face intimidation in lead-up to higher appeal
Activists who took over the multi-million property (Vossiusstraat 16) owned by Russian sanctioned billionaire Arkady Volozh last October, are facing another court case this coming Wednesday.
Volozh, the founder of Russian search engine Yandex, lost an earlier court case against the squatters in November. At that time the judge ruled the squatters would not have to vacate the property because it is frozen as a result of the sanctions and would thus remain unused, since Volozh is barred from entering Europe after being placed on the EU sanctions list for promoting the war with Ukraine through his search engine. The legal situation remains unchanged since November, as Volozh is still on the EU sanctions list. He nonetheless will try his luck again in a higher appeal set to take place this Wednesday.
The squatters attest that the opposing party has submitted last-minute evidence in an attempt to discredit the new residents. The evidence includes videos and pictures taken from inside the squatted building and screenshots from an internal group chat. According to the squatters these videos were taken without their knowledge and consent over a period of two months by a man who claimed to be a refugee from Ukraine in need of a place to stay. [Read More]
Amsterdam: update from Binnenkadijk 478
We, the new residents of the apartment at Binnenkadijk 478, were approached by Alliantie on Monday 27 March and invited for a talk. By squatting this apartment, we are supporting a pre-existing struggle and protest around Alliantie’s plan to sell 140 social rental homes in the Entrepotdok complex (a unique project designed to jointly house social housing, housing groups and middle-class tenants), and to provide ourselves with housing in a city that has become increasingly unlivable for people with lower incomes.
Given the supposed mission/vision of Alliantie as a housing corporation to provide residents of Amsterdam with affordable housing, we hoped for a friendly conversation aimed at finding a solution that is beneficial for all parties involved. Unfortunately, nothing came of it. The flat had been vacant for seven months for no apparent reason (the previous occupants were evicted for bureaucratic/legal formalities) and no plans for the future were made public or even communicated to the residents. Coincidentally, shortly after the occupation, Alliantie informed the residents of the complex for the first time about various possible future scenarios for the apartment. This is not the first time such a coincidence has occurred. Despite the fact that Alliantie’s plans for the housing are in the early stages and are only ideas at the moment, they plan to evict us as soon as possible and thereby make us homeless. A curious approach for a housing corporation, which contradicts their own core values and, moreover, with usual legal standards that are applied to squatting cases. The right to housing is – at least in theory – only taken away from people if there is a concrete future plan for the housing in question (supported by evidence), which is also about to be implemented. This is clearly not the case for Binnenkadijk 478. [Read More]
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