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

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]

UK: Chester’s homeless have had enough!

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]