On Saturday, March 14th, a group of supporters mobilized to defend several families, who launched an occupation of a two-bedroom bungalow in the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Calling themselves “Reclaimers,” these new residents are demanding that housing owned by the California Department of Transportation or Caltrans, which for decades has laid vacant, be used to house the houseless in the face of the growing COVID-19 outbreak and continuing housing crisis. The group is inspired in part by Moms 4 Housing in Oakland, California, who led a successful housing occupation in January. [Read More]
Los Angeles: A dozen vacant homes reclaimed by unhoused tenants as calls for rent strike grow across US
Oakland (USA): Moms for Housing Respond to Eviction Notice
On November 18th, a group of mothers without shelter reclaimed possession of a vacant investor-owned property in West Oakland. They have been living in the home with their children and rehabilitating the property ever since. On December 3rd they received an eviction notice from Wedgewood Inc, the company that has been holding 2928 Magnolia St. vacant during a housing crisis. The eviction notice named the previous owner of the house, not the Moms for Housing.
“Wedgewood wants to pretend we don’t exist, that their actions don’t have real-life consequences for Oaklanders,” said Dominique Walker, one of the Moms for Housing and a resident of 2928 Magnolia St. “We’ve had hundreds of our supporters calling and emailing them. We’ve sent letters from ourselves and supporting organizations. But Wedgewood has refused to sit down with us to talk. Instead of negotiating with us in good faith, they hired a ‘crisis communications’ firm and sent an eviction notice to someone who doesn’t even live here.”
[Read More]
Oakland: La Idea squatted social center served eviction order
On May 29th, 2015, an eviction order was served to La Idea, a squatted social center near the Dimond District of Oakland. In two weeks, the Alameda County Sheriff will put the house on its list of upcoming evictions and will dispatch an armored personnel carrier and several armed men to the house to clear everyone out at gunpoint. In this regard, La Idea is not exceptional and thousands of people have been evicted in the same manner all over Oakland. It is simply the normal functioning of capitalism.
Oakland, CA: Squatted Social Center Catches Fire
Squatted social center known as the RCA, part of the RCA/Hot Mess compound, caught fire early Wednesday morning in Oakland, California. It appears that no one was inside at the time, as Sheriffs were scheduled to evict the property the day earlier, although it is unknown if they did. In lieu of a communique from the squatters, the following is from mainstream media outlet CBS San Francisco:
Oakland: “Sketch Pad” Squat Eviction
A west Oakland squat known as “Sketch Pad” was evicted Tuesday by sheriffs.
Oakland: Boat Squatters Face Eviction
In September of 2013, thirty boat squatters floating at the Jack London Aquatic Park were served with eviction notices. They had thirty days to clear out or else their boats would be impounded and scrapped. An ad-hoc committee of the EPA, state police, and OPD formed a campaign to clean up the waterfront. Instead of dealing with the severe pollution of diesel emissions at the port or raising sunken ships, they targeted the boat community. The city of Oakland had decided that the small boat community was too unsavory for the upcoming condo developments to look at from their 18th story windows. The city evicted these squatters from the Jack London Aquatic Park, which is right along the Oak St edge of the 5th Avenue Development Project. Fireworks sat down with one of the evicted boat squatters who told us about boat squatting, the eviction process and its connections to rapid gentrification in Oakland.
[Read More]
Oakland (USA): Stay Away Squat evicted
The StayAway squat in Oakland was evicted by a paramilitary camo-clad SWAT team with assault rifles. A long-time rent paying resident was also evicted and left homeless, all for the profit of REO Homes.
At around 10am, four heavily armored black SWAT trucks turned heads as they rolled down Vallecito Place in Highland. Deterred by the barricades that had been built in front of the StayAway over the previous month of eviction defense, the camo-clad SWAT team packing AR-15s went up 28th street and entered an adjoining property. This maneuver appears to have been pre-planned, as the neighbor said that while the Sheriff did not gain her consent to pass through her yard, she was addressed by name upon stepping outside. Entering through the backyard with no warning, StayAway residents confronted by this paramilitary squad were forced at gunpoint to abandon their possessions and leave their home with nothing but the clothes on their bodies. Two comrades were arrested and at the time of this writing their charges are unknown, although we know they were taken to Santa Rita County Jail. [Read More]
Oakland (USA): Squat defense for the Stay Away Squat
We are the squat collective at Stay Away in East Oakland. Tuesday, August 6th makes two full weeks we have been living behind the barricades in order to defend and save our home, a radical space, and one of the lasting vestiges of the Occupy Oakland movement. We are still struggling. We are asking the community of the Bay Area; fellow squatters, fellow radicals, our comrades to come out and help us in the event of an attempted forcible removal by the Sheriff’s Department. Oakland has lost too many of its radical spaces. We are facing the same evil corporation, REO Homes LLC, that evicted the G-Spot–another radical space–and the state and corporate forces are trying to quash our movement to live free.
This house has a two year history that rose directly out of Occupy Oakland, and has gone through many changes with many members, but it has remained, and will remain, an activist house. Members of this collective work or have worked with various groups from Food Not Bombs to Cop Watch as well as founding the Park Gardens and many other activist groups. We are a diverse group or individuals working together collectively to provide a space that is liberated from corporate control of our lives, and to be an example of how we can live free of the chains of capitalism. [Read More]
Oakland: All Out To Support The Stay Away Squat!
Last week, residents at the Stay Away received an eviction notice from the Alameda County Sherriff, ordering them to vacate by this Tuesday, July 23rd. The Stay Away is a squatted four-unit apartment building that was started in November of 2011 in the midst of the events surrounding Occupy Oakland. It has housed numerous people since it began and provided free rent for those who needed it. Now it is threatened with destruction at the hands of REO Homes LLC, a predatory entity that has bought hundreds of foreclosed houses in the City of Oakland (especially West Oakland).
[Read More]
Oakland, USA : National Lawyers Guild Wins Settlement for Occupy Oakland Injuries in Campbell vs Oakland
Twelve people injured by the Oakland police department during Occupy Oakland demonstrations have settled a federal civil rights lawsuit with the city of Oakland for a total of $1.17 million. The physical injuries came as a result of OPD’s violent response to Occupy Oakland on October 25 and November 2, 2011. Plaintiffs to receive compensation for injuries include David Morse, a long-time member of the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center (Indybay).
The settlement in the Campbell vs. City of Oakland case comes on the heals of another $1 million settlement still pending final approval, Spalding vs. City of Oakland. As a result of both cases, OPD has agreed to allow the federal court to enforce OPD’s compliance with its own crowd control policy and to negotiate with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) before making any changes to the policy. The control policy prohibits police from shooting “less lethal” impact munitions or tossing explosive teargas grenades into crowds, and prohibits mass arrests without warning or opportunity to disperse.
On the Eve of Our Repression: Communiqué on The Squatting Struggle in Oakland 2/10/13
In our time squatting we’ve learned unconventional methods of survival. A blurring of means and ends. Not least of these is the ability to adapt, to disappear from one circumstances and hold our ground in others. To understand the difference between defensive and offensive actions.
And once again, the need for action and for offense rises in our hearts. The calls for passivity and obedience ring hollower each day, as building by building our autonomous experiments collapse at the intervention of the Police or the County Pigs. We are forced to look at the escalating repression of squatters and autonomous spaces from within the situation, as new partisans in a social war of evolving terrain.
Cops riot, 300 nicked as Occupy Oakland tries to Occupy Social Centre
Yesterday, Occupy Oakland moved to convert a vacant building into a community center to provide education, medical, and housing services for the 99%. Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbag rounds and mass arrests. The state has compounded its policy of callous indifference with a ruthless display of violent repression. The Occupy movement will respond, as we have always responded: with an overwhelming show of collective resistance. Today, we take to the streets. Across the country, we will demonstrate our resolve to overcome repression and continue to build a better world grounded in love and solidarity for one another. All eyes on all Occupies.
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