"The scandal of empty buildings made us take direct action on homelessness I and the other Love Activists can't stand by while 1.5 million buildings sit empty and 110,000 people don't have homes Share 8 inShare 0 Email Clare Pauling theguardian.com, Friday 26 December 2014 16.30 GMT Jump to comments (41) Some of the Love Activist protesters at the building on the corner of Charing Cross Road. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian The Love Activists hit the headlines on 23 December when the Guardian reported that we had occupied a former RBS building in central London. Our plan was to open it up to homeless people on Christmas Day and provide a hot festive lunch for all. We appealed for donations of food and cooking utensils and were overwhelmed by the generous response. In 2012 squatting in a residential building became illegal: squatting in commercial premises remains a civil offence. Property owners have to seek a court order to remove squatters. We knew that we would not be allowed to remain for long in the former bank building but as the building is currently not in use we hoped the owners would wait until after we had provided the Christmas lunch. It is a very spacious building in good condition with ample cooking facilities to provide food for a large number of people. We tried to negotiate with the owners to leave after Christmas to avoid them and the taxpayer the time and expense of taking us to court but they did not respond. The company got an emergency injunction from the high court and without warning bailiffs evicted us early on Christmas Eve. I and Danny Freeman, another of the Love Activists staged a 10-hour protest on the balcony of the building. We were informed that a high court judge had varied the injunction allowing us to return to the building to prepare and serve Christmas lunch and agreed to leave the balcony. But police immediately arrested us. Another court order prevented us from returning to the building so we served an uncooked Christmas lunch yesterday on the pavement outside the former bank. We have had so many food donations and have continued handing out free food and clothing to those in need. Our dream is to have somewhere where we can cook and distribute free food to everyone who needs it – an inclusive food bank rather than one like the current model where people have to be referred and are limited to a certain number of visits."
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