you imagine what it is like to be a young runaway girl of 14 trapped
in the cycle of misery that it is to live on the streets.
For many people squatting is desperation and the last resort,to some
it is the ups and downs,the
joy of community.
I would not be alive were it not for squatting: as a young homeless 18
year old on the streets of London, I nearly topped myself, alone,
cold,depressed skint, you don't think straight. Squatting saved my
life.
Some friends invited me to stay in their lounge in a squat in Kings Cross.
I went on to create nearly 20 years of squatted environmental
community centres that helped many people who had been in the same
situation I had been in.
This is maybe one of the reasons I have been feeling the rage of the
last 6 months as I have seen a systematic,pre planned ,co-ordinated
weekly assault on the last of our common rights ,the right to shelter
in an empty abandoned building.
This has been a right for time.
The misrepresentation, propaganda and blatant lies we have faced from
the mainstream media,as squatters,the dispossessed, the poorest and
most vulnerable in our society.
This propaganda campaign has been needed to disguise the major
assault on our rights to Protest,as it will affect Trade union and
student occupation of workplace and university.
The occupation of camps for Peace and to save the environment such as
Climate Camps.
Trespass has always been a civil offence, this criminalisation of
trespass,sheltering/squatting would be like the last of the 'Enclosure
Acts'. Affecting our rights to shelter/tenants rights.
We have had a right to go before a magistrate to hear our case for 700
years since the 1371 force able entry act.
The proposed new law would licence landlords to use violence to evict.
We need some heart, compassion what are the solutions,
725,000 empty buildings in UK ( empty homes agency figures)
Up to half a million ,hidden homeless in the middle of a
housing crisis.(Crisis figures)
We need a Green Sustainable Deal ,buildings could be recycled and renovated as
squatters have done for time. We transform, we re-use, we recycle empty
and abandoned buildings,by using all the buildings we could create
new homes, project and work spaces that could create hundreds of
thousands of sustainable jobs and community.
It feel like their has been a declaration of War on the poor and most
vulnerable in our society, by the media and politicians. An assault
is being launched on the rights our ancestors struggled long and hard
for.
We are human beings we have rights and the tables are turning as the
recent events in New York #occupywallst that has spread to Los
Angeles,Chicago and San Francisco and Dallas, a wave of change is
spreading across the globe from the “Arab Spring” to the “American
Fall”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
We refuse to take this lying down to be imprisoned for housing
ourselves due to a failing system that seems to have ceased to care
for its people it was elected to help.
Homes not jails.
The wave of repossessions to come and people being evicted due to not
being able to pay the rent,. has been suggested as another reason to
illegalise the squatting that many would turn too. Most in
desperation and as a last resort
160 solicitors and academics put it well in the Guardian in a mass
letter on the misrepresentation of trespass.
http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/
www.squashcampaign.org consultation quick response guide …...
Consultation ends Oct 5th SOS 5pm
There is a call from the squash to extend the deadline as the
consultation has not been properly carried out,with fair time and
process of consultation.
http://www.squashcampaign.org/
Save our Squatting (Sheltering),
If you care for that young girl or boy who could be you ,or your child in the
time to come.
http://phoenixrainbow23.
By Pete Phoenix Squatters Housing Action Group
www.
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