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: Film afternoon about housing struggle in Oost
Film afternoon about housing struggle in Oost at Joe’s Garage from 16:00 till 18:00 on 20 july 2022.
On the basis of footage of residents’ actions by the Squatter Group East (Kraakgroep Oost) and the Tenants’ Association East (Huurdersvereniging Oost), we will discuss many years of resistance against this still ongoing attack on affordable housing.
The program also includes a new film about Frans Ondunk, chairman of the Tenants’ Association East, but also known as the Sheriff of East, who fired at landlords on a daily basis.
Throughout the history of Amsterdam East, the squatting movement and the local tenants’ association have propagated the same message with regularity. The property owners whose properties were squatted were often the same as those of the properties in which tenants were terrorized. [Read More]
Amsterdam: Joe’s Garage, sweet sixteen and still angry!
Joe’s Garage was squatted 16 years ago. The squatting group East has been active in the Transvaal neighborhood for about 20 years, starting with the squatting of Pretoriussstraat 28 in 2001. We are open to the neighborhood on a weekly basis, with the give away shop, the squatting assistance, movie nights and the people’s kitchen.
In addition to our activities as a squatting group with other squats such as Het Blijvertje and de Valreep, we’ve also supported initiatives in East such as Bajesdorp in the Amstel district, the Nieuwland in the Dapper neighbourhood and soon the Nieuwe Meent on the Archimedesplantsoen, in which buildings were acquired in collective ownership and combining activities for and in the neighbourhood.
Despite all this, in Amsterdam East and the Transvaal neighbourhood, social housing and other affordable housing is under great pressure from speculation in the housing market, with more and more people finding themselves financially struggling. Increasing uncertainty of your housing because of precarity and affordability make people desperate.
Good affordable and secure housing is not a luxury item, but a necessity for everyone! [Read More]
Amsterdam: New Policy. No Eviction for Emptiness…
As a squatter in Amsterdam, looking back on the past year is painful. 2019 dealt heavy blows to a movement that didn’t seem capable of much more than taking the beating. The city has lost its largest squats and despite numerous squatting actions, hardly any new buildings have survived the end of the year. What’s more, politicians tried to introduce a law at national level to further criminalise squatters while the media reported time and time again how afflicted property owners are being deceived repeatedly by squatters. To top it all off, the mayor concludes the year with a report on a new policy designed to implement a more rigorous approach to squatting.
There’s not much left to say beyond 2019 having been a rather grim year, making it difficult to paint a hopeful picture for squatting in Amsterdam in 2020.
We look back on a year in which we, above all, lost a lot. [Read More]
Amsterdam: Infonight Housing for All (Cologne) and KoZe (Hamburg)
Saturday 29th of October 2016 – 7pm @ Joe’s Garage, Pretoriusstraat 43, Amsterdam.
Infonight and Food – Housing for all//Cologne + KoZe//Hamburg
At the end of October, two collectives from Cologne and Hamburg will be in Amsterdam in order to exchange ideas and experiences about the local struggles for housing and the establishment of solidary structures in our cities and beyond its limits.
Housing for All is a recent movement in Cologne that suggests practical ways of re-appropriating real estate properties in word and action. We are happy to visit our friends at Joe’s and meeting people from KoZe as well! Looking forward to it. https://karti14.noblogs.org/
Koze is the ‘Collective Center/Kollektives Zentrum’ in Hamburg, that was founded through a squatting action in 2014 and is currently under thread of eviction. http://koze.in/ [Read More]
Amsterdam: 10 years Joe’s Garage
For 10 years, Joe’s Garage organizes political action, film and debate evenings, discussions and demonstrations. Everyone is welcome whether it’s for advice in precarious housing, employment and other life issues or for a bowl of soup, a good conversation, nice music or a free raincoat from the Giveaway Shop.
As known, there is a desperate shortage of housing in Amsterdam. That is, we believe, generally not because of a lack of actual buildings but due to shortcomings of housing policy, power struggles in politics and greed in this capitalist capital. None of the 50 shades of the cabinet has ever really been able to solve this urgent problem.
Therefore we squat houses. After all, in hollow promises, one can’t live from pretty words and symbolic politics. [Read More]
Czech squatting weekend in Amsterdam
Czech squatting weekend in Amsterdam, February 20th – 22nd 2015. Klinika on tour!
Friday 20.02.2015 Klinika soli night with food, presentation, discussion & more @ Squatted autonomous space Joe’s Garage http://www.joesgarage.nl/
19:00 Soli dinner (some Czech traditional dish in the vegan style)
20:00 Presentation
21:00 Discussion, maybe some movie about current squatting theme in Czech Republic and maybe some acoustic concert
Some members of Czech squatting movement are coming to Amsterdam to present and discuss about the actual breakthrough in the squatting movement in Czech Republic. On Saturday, November 29th, an abandoned building of a former clinic in Prague district of Žižkov was occupied by a group of activists. Cleaning works, reconstruction and program started immediately. Despite widespread support, including neighbors, politicians, artists, journalists etc., the owner of the house – Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs – withdrawed from negotiations. Regarding to some sources, the “anti-extremist” department of Czech police played an important role in this decision.
Autonomní sociální centrum Klinika (Autonomous Social Centre Klinika /Clinic http://451.cz/klinika/ ) was evicted December 9th after ten days of struggle and hundreds of people participating. Spontaneous demonstrations immediately took place in front and inside of Žižkov city hall and in office of the owner. After a few days, one thousand people demonstrated in support of the autonomous center. The building is now being guarded, but the struggle isn’t over yet. Žižkov councilors agreed that they will start negotiations with the state. The public support of squatting is now the highest in Czech history. The ministers of interior, finance and social affairs publicly admitted the possibility of decriminalization of squatting. We, as a group supporting a project of social centre, are calling for international support! A pressure on Czech state can help us to create a historical success. Every city needs it’s clinic!
Saturday 21.02.2015, Soli concert and party @ DisKontrol, Papaverweg 7, Amsterdam Noord [Read More]
Amsterdam: Rent Rebels, screenings and discussion with activists from Berlin
On the weekend of the 21th and 22nd of November we are welcoming people from Berlin to screen with us the very recent film about the Renter Rebels in the Berlin, a quite popular and diverse movement that emerged in the last couple of years and that struggles against massive gentrification and forced evictions of renters that take place at high pace. That weekend shall serve as space for discussion and exchange with the people from Berlin, about experiences being made in struggle, the urban restructuring that goes on in Berlin, and the self-organisation of all kinds of people to fight against it. Besides of being inspirational the events shall also be a space to come together and exchange ideas and experiences related to the unacceptable housing situation in Amsterdam and necessary housing struggles. Descent housing in its various forms and shapes and the city itself is not for profit but for us, the people, and a basic need of everybody independent of social status. [Read More]
Amsterdam: The Kraak Spreek Uur, autonomous squatting assistance
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]
Amsterdam: Joe’s Garage, May news
Eight weeks to go for the Valreep. Mayor van der Laan was getting too impatient to evict the Valreep, social centre squatted since 24 july 2011. At the end of April, after yet another proposal by the squatters to legalise the building, the eviction letter was delivered not by some random cop but by Leen Schaap himself, the nostalgic police chief, commanding police forces during every eviction in Amsterdam. Schaap did not hesitate to climb the fences to make his way to the Valreep. “How do you feel about this?” dares he to ask while handing the letter. Idealen ontruim niet! (You can’t evict ideals!) announces the Valreep website. [Read More]
Amsterdam: Joe’s Garage, April news
Despite the continuous efforts by the government to keep squatted spaces under the threat of repression and eviction, new autonomous and creative projects keep on emerging in Amsterdam. On March the 1st, the buildings on the Vechtstraat 1, 5, 7 were squatted.
A new social centre, De Strijd, on Vechtstraat 7, opened just two weeks after the occupation. The ongoing workshops (language classes, martial arts), vegan kitchen, and give away shop immediately transformed these buildings from objects of real estate speculation into spaces for the experimentation of radical politics. The support of the neighbours and the large participation of many groups of activists show the vital importance of creating autonomous and collective sites of struggle to contrast the political desertification of the city. [Read More]
Amsterdam: Joe’s Garage, Newsletter February 2014
During the last months various squats were opened and closed in Amsterdam and surroundings. Yet, the eviction procedure is becoming easier for the cops. Recently, the police came out with an old trick, the speed- eviction: despite squatting being illegal, squatters still have the right to domestic peace, to get notified 8 weeks in advance, and to be able to start a court case to defend themselves. However, in the last weeks two office buildings in the Amsterdam’s surroundings were evicted by regular cops without any notice, just a few days after the occupation. The squatters were arrested and quickly released without charges.
Evictions without notice and without a court ruling are illegal, as they violate the right to domestic privacy of the inhabitants. The cops know this well, but too often they put themselves ‘above the law’ to serve the interests of private property owners.
To stop the trend of illegal speed-evictions, the Amsterdam squatting groups are about to sue the state, and made a call out to other groups of squatters for collecting cases of speed-eviction. [Read More]
Radar Online Agenda
