Aljazeera: British ban squatting to tackle 'anarchists'

[Tony Gosling]

Squatting in the UK: Facts and Figures
Squatting is occupying an empty property or space without the 
permission of the owner
39 per cent of homeless people in the UK are estimated to have 
resorted to squatting at some time
There are an estimated 950,000 empty properties in the UK
Squatting in a residential property in England and Wales is now a 
criminal offence, punishable by six months imprisonment and a $8,000 
fine, with police granted instant powers of eviction and arrest
Critics of the law, including many leading lawyers, point out that 
occupying somebody's home was already a criminal offence
Squatting in a non-residential property is still a civil matter, 
requiring a landlord to seek a court order to evict the occupants
Squatting has been illegal under Scotland's separate legal system 
since the mid-19th century
Sources: Crisis, Shelter, Empty Homes, Ministry of Justice

British ban squatting to tackle 'anarchists'
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/11/201211572220964248.html
Squatting in empty properties is now a criminal offence, but homeless 
people say they are being unfairly criminalised.
Simon Hooper Last Modified: 12 Nov 2012 14:13
London, UK - "Todd" was 18 when he came to the United Kingdom from 
Lithuania in 2005 in search of a better life. But things didn't work 
out. By 2009, with the British economy ravaged by recession, he had 
lost his job and had nowhere to live.
"I had really bad depression so I couldn't hold a job. I ended up 
sleeping rough on the streets. My mental health was deteriorating... 
I had suicidal thoughts," he recalls.
Todd - an adopted Anglicisation of his Lithuanian name - ended up in 
Brighton, a town on England's south coast with a reputation for 
tolerance, a vibrant arts scene and a homelessness problem. It was 
there that he began to rebuild his life, finding a vital support 
network among those squatting in the town's ample stock of empty and 
neglected buildings and sometimes opening them up as impromptu 
galleries and cultural spaces.

Emacs!


British squatters face eviction after law change

"I call myself houseless, not homeless. We are a community and we 
help each other out," he explains. "There is a lot of support and 
there is always somebody to talk to. Living like this, you're always 
in control of your own life. You don't have the money to support 
yourself food-wise, maybe, but you can go and get it from skips. It's 
still the same food."
But tens of thousands like Todd who seek shelter in unoccupied 
properties now risk arrest and imprisonment under a government-backed 
campaign to outlaw squatting.
Under a law in place since the beginning of September, squatting in 
empty residential properties in England and Wales is already a 
criminal offence, with those convicted facing months in prison and 
steep fines. The ministry of justice estimates that up to 2,000 
people could be prosecuted each year.
Supporters of the law, including David Cameron, the British prime 
minister, argue that banning squatting is necessary to protect 
homeowners and landlords, to prevent associated anti-social and 
criminal behaviour, and to give the police and courts greater powers 
to evict, arrest and prosecute those engaged in it.

'Targets the vulnerable'
Recently, Mike Weatherley, the main architect of that legislation, 
met Chris Grayling, the justice minister, to discuss its extension to 
commercial properties as well.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Weatherley, whose Hove constituency is 
adjacent to Brighton, said that the law needed to be tougher because 
squatters were taking advantage of a "loophole" allowing the 
occupation of properties that were part-commercial and 
part-residential, such as pubs.
"The police like it, the public like it, it's a good law, and those 
who says it's not are just anarchists," said Weatherley. "These 
properties belong to somebody and the law for too long has been ineffectual."
But opponents say that the ban targets the vulnerable at a time when 
cuts to public services and benefits, high unemployment and a 
shortage of social housing mean that, for some, sleeping in a squat 
may be the last option before sleeping on the streets.
Squatting campaigners say there are also hundreds of thousands of 
properties being left empty and falling into dereliction even as 
rising rents and high property prices have left growing numbers 
struggling to find affordable accommodation.
"All it's doing is criminalising homeless people in the middle of a 
housing crisis," said Joseph Blake of the Squatters' Action for 
Secure Homes (SQUASH) pressure group. He cited the case of a 
21-year-old man, Alex Haigh, who in September became the first person 
to be jailed under the new law.
"The people who are being affected are those using squatting as the 
final means to get a roof over their head. Alex Haigh has gone to 
prison for sheltering in a building that had been empty for a 
year-and-a-half. We think squatting needs to be there as a last 
resort, especially in tough times."
Homelessness in many areas of the UK has risen sharply in recent 
years, with the latest government figures showing more than 50,000 
families and individuals in need of emergency accommodation in 2012, 
a 25 percent rise since 2009.

Charities and campaigners argue that the actual number of "hidden 
homeless", including rough sleepers and those sleeping on sofas, is 
much higher. Up to 50,000 people are estimated to be living in 
squats, including about half now illegally in residential properties, 
and research by the charity Crisis showed that almost 40 percent of 
homeless people have resorted to squatting at some point, often in 
bleak and squalid conditions.
Talia Menezes of the Eviction Resistance squatting support network 
said the law change had already forced many squatters to make 
difficult choices between staying put illegally in residential 
properties or seeking alternative accommodation, sometimes finding 
refuge in already overcrowded commercial squats.
"There is one squat that had capacity for 15 people and recently it 
was holding 45 people and this includes families and people whose 
English was not so great," she said. "But there's been a really 
lovely thing where a lot of squats have opened their doors and gone, 
well ok, whoever needs some space. People have been trying to stop 
people from ending up on the street."
Eviction Resistance, which offers advice and support to those 
threatened with eviction, was founded by Menezes and her partner 
Keith Robin, a veteran political activist who died last month at the 
age of 56 as a consequence of a long-term brain tumour.
"I talked to him about getting a council flat because squatting is 
not an easy life, but he completely refused," she said. "He felt he 
was either going to be taking housing off a family or squatting - 
that was his dilemma."
Prior to his death, Robin described to Al Jazeera how the 
London-based network worked to delay evictions by summoning crowds to 
peacefully block bailiffs and police from gaining entry to squats.
"We've found that if you are obstructive but quite amiable then 
police and bailiffs will cut you quite a lot of slack," he said. "You 
can put off an eviction, sometimes for months, sometimes only for a 
couple of weeks. But that's all we're doing. We're trying to enable 
people to have somewhere to live for a little bit longer."
Robin said that some activists also planned to target residential 
properties in an effort to prove the new law unworkable.
"We're going to start occupying them as a political act. And we're 
going to call the police and say bring it on. There are quite a lot 
of people who are up for that. If you push someone up against a wall 
and you don't give them any way out then the only thing they can do is resist."

Just surviving
Squatting has a long and colourful tradition in the UK and has often 
been associated with political activism and countercultural protest. 
But media coverage of the subject tends to focus on lurid stories of 
dreadlocked "crusties" and anarchists moving into multi-million pound 
Mayfair mansions, or of homeowners returning from holiday to find 
their properties trashed by eastern European gangs.
One such recent headline in the sensationalist Daily Mail newspaper 
read: "Immigration officer comes home to find family of Romanian 
gypsies squatting in her house, wearing her clothes and drinking her 
wine (after telling neighbours she'd died)".
But Casper, a Brighton-based squatter, said there were many instances 
of squatters playing positive roles in the communities where they 
lived. He said he had been involved in art galleries, social centres, 
a food distribution hub and an autonomous homeless shelter which had 
all been run by squatters.
Other notable examples include a closed public library at Friern 
Barnet in north London which was re-opened by squatters and 
re-stocked with donated books, and the Grow Heathrow project which 
established a thriving organic garden with local support on land 
earmarked for airport expansion.

"We're not talking about someone who is spending a night in a 
doorway. We are talking about somebody who is taking somebody else's property."
- Mike Weatherley

"When the government is cutting all these services that people 
drastically need and they're saying that people should step in to 
fill the cracks, well, that's exactly what we're doing," said Casper.
Mike Weatherley, though, rejects the notion of the virtuous squatter, 
as well as any correlation between squatting and homelessness.
"Vulnerable people should be looked after by the local authorities 
and that is the end of it. There is no link between homelessness and 
squatting, no matter how they try to link the two together to get 
some sympathy for their cause," he said.
"Let's be clear, we're not talking about someone who is spending a 
night in a doorway. We are talking about somebody who is taking 
somebody else's property. These are anti-capitalist people and they 
shouldn't be able to get away with it."
But Catherine Brogan, another SQUASH campaigner, said that most 
squatters were simply doing what they had to to survive.
"Living in empty buildings and eating from bins and going through 
rubbish is not just something that happens in the global south. 
That's something that's happening in the UK. I don't think it's about 
people being anti-capitalist. It's about people finding a way to live."
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20121116/a307b3fc/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/x-ygp-stripped
Size: 213 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20121116/a307b3fc/attachment.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
--
+44 (0)7786 952037
http://groups.google.com/group/uk-911-truth
http://www.youtube.com/user/PublicEnquiry
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diggers350/
http://www.reinvestigate911.org/
http://www.thisweek.org.uk/
http://www.911forum.org.uk/
http://groups.google.com/group/uk-911-truth
uk-911-truth+subscribe at googlegroups.com
"Capitalism is institutionalised bribery."
_________________
www.abolishwar.org.uk
www.globalresearch.ca
www.public-interest.co.uk
www.radio4all.net/index.php/series/Bristol+Broadband+Co-operative
www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1407615751783.2051663.1274106225&l=90330c0ba5&type=1
<http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf>http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf 

"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which 
alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
<https://217.72.179.7/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/>https://217.72.179.7/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/

Fear not therefore: for there is nothing covered that shall not be 
revealed; and nothing hid that shall not be made known. What I tell 
you in darkness, that speak ye in the light and what ye hear in the 
ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:26-27

Die Pride and Envie; Flesh, take the poor's advice.
Covetousnesse be gon: Come, Truth and Love arise.
Patience take the Crown; throw Anger out of dores:
Cast out Hypocrisie and Lust, which follows whores:
Then England sit in rest; Thy sorrows will have end;
Thy Sons will live in peace, and each will be a friend.
http://tinyurl.com/6ct7zh6  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20121116/a307b3fc/attachment-0001.html>