Finsbury Square Report

7/31/2019 Finsbury Square Report

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THE PILION TRUST

12 Clarendon Buildings, 25 Horsell Road, London N5 1XLTelephone: 020 7700-2498 Fax: 020 7700-2542

W: www.piliontrust.org.uk B:http://piliontrust.blogspot.com

Pilion Trust provides services for vulnerable people with alcohol, drug and mental health problems

The Pilion Trust Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee and a Registered Charity.Registered Company No.6043010 England & Wales and Charity Registration No: 1122628

The Pilion Trust

We give you time and freedom to succeed

Finsbury Square Occupy CampReport15.5.2012 to 21.06.2012.

Enhanced Community Outreach (ECO) at Finsbury Square

As a Charity we became aware of the Occupation of Finsbury Square back in

November 2011. Savvas Panas and Howard Garrick were able to begin a

conversation with the organisers of Occupy immediately and attend 3 of theGeneral Assembly meetings that took place on the site.

A working relationship was established with The Welfare and Outreach members

of the Occupy Movement and telephone referrals were accepted as part of this

arrangement.

Pilion’s ECO staff were able to engage with some of the occupants if they

presented themselves off site and expressed a need for assistance, although, in

the earlier days of the encampment it was understood that their message was

political and the numbers of actual homeless people using the site as a

temporary base was unclear. It became apparent very quickly that most of the

original Occupy London organisers and followers had begun to abandon this

particular site in January 2012, moving on to their next target.

Many of the homeless people and those with challenging complex needs who

received no assistance after the eviction at St Pauls Cathedral by The City of

London Corporation moved onto the site at Finsbury Square in January and

begun to frequent all the usual begging sites at Old Street. Four homeless



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people from Finsbury Square accessed The Pilion Trust’s SWEP in February and

were referred into housing.

On Wednesday 16th May we were approached by Islington Council as the

commissioned outreach service for the borough. The occupants had just been

served eviction papers and our brief was to engage with the occupants, assessthe situation on the ground, taking into account numbers of those needing

assistance, the range of needs and the actual health and safety of the camp.

A team of staff was put together that day! Staff members, students and

volunteers with a varying range of skills and schools of thought were rallied so

as to be able to try and understand how we might work with this challenging

group who some of us may not have had the experience of working with before.

As a team we also agreed that we would like to see the first peaceful eviction of

an Occupy Site in its short history as a movement, hopefully setting a precedentfor future evictions. We also agreed, as is our policy, that no one should actually

need to be homeless in Islington or at all for that matter, on or after the

imminent eviction.

We began by scouring the social media avenues that this group used to

communicate their plans, thoughts and feelings even engaging with some of

their Twitter and Facebook pages to

build a picture of the types of risks

posed to the team and ultimately

the Islington Community.

The first week at Finsbury Square

was a tough one, blessed by good

weather we were able to have two

shifts working daily with people

camped.

Although establishing trust initially

was not an easy process on the

camp at this stage. A group of the

more hard core, long term professional protestors who have made careers out of

this lifestyle choice had built up an unhealthy mistrust of services and this

attitude had infected the camp. The Team managed to rebuild our relationship

with the populous. We were also surprised at the scale of the job in hand and

the amount of foreign nationals and economic migrants on site.

So, tentatively at first but with growing trust people began to come forward to

be assessed for their housing, drug, alcohol, mental health and other needs.



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Within the first ten days the team had

managed to assess and provide information

for up to sixty people.

We handed out Rough Sleeper Guide

books, copies of The PavementMagazine and lists of accessible housing

benefit landlords, harm minimisation and

safer injecting packs. We were able to sign

post and refer into drug/alcohol services,

soup runs and drop-in services where

people could shower and attend to some of

their issues. We escorted people to GP’s, A&E’s, Podiatrist and emergency dental

appointments at The Royal London as well as contacting all out of borough

agencies that many of the occupants were connected too.

For those that needed or wished to reconnect with their borough, county or

country of origin we found it rather more difficult to help as the NSNO service

that we would normally use in these cases became obstructive in there definition

of homelessness and rough sleeping.

This did for some time hamper some our efforts to move people on in healthy

and productive way. This did pose a problem for us as team in the beginning but

as the weeks passed we were able to find alternative routes home for people and

at least begin helping some see a way out of their situations. Outreach teams

were contacted from other boroughs, homeless person units were informed of their responsibilities and people were escorted and advocated for in these areas.

Children’s services in both Bromley

and Islington also supported our

work with the young people on site.

Leading up to eviction day the camp

became a more volatile place to

work, new people were arriving,

drinking and drug use seemed to beincreasing on site and the

atmosphere, attitude and outlook of

the people became more aggressive.



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Staff were worried that we may

not achieve the objective which

was to get as many people off

peacefully in to safe, secure and

healthy housing pathways. This

worry was unfounded though as

the negotiations between staff

and occupants were carried out

smoothly, without incident and

we were able to navigate the

delicate tightrope between

protestor and vulnerable person.

From the total number of people

that the Team spoke to during

these weeks the numbers of people

accepting to be assessed and asking for support from Pilion ECO Service: 49

The statistics shown below are from the case files of the 49 people who acceptedthe support.

Places of Origin:

Hackney 5 Stoke-on-Trent 1

Tower Hamlets 7 Huddersfield 1

Westminster 2 Glasgow 1

Southwark 1 Surrey 1

Camden 1 Coventry 1

Brent 1 Middlesex 1

Waltham Forest 1 No connections 4

Newham 1

Lambeth 1 Australia 1

City of London 1 Portugal 2

Haringey 2 Belgium 1

Lewisham 2 Hungary 2Bromley 1 Germany 1

Kensington and Chelsea 1 Bulgaria 3

Wandsworth 1 Poland 1



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Gender

Onward referrals:

Hospital Admissions 5 Benefits 16

Dental/Optician 6 PSO 5

Reconnection to Boroughs 27 NSNO 4

Children’s Services 5 Reconnection to EU Countries 2

Adult Social Services 3 Immigration Solicitors 2

Mental Health Assessment 6 Alcohol and Drug Treatment 3

Detox 1 Legal support 3

National Insurance No. apps 5 Housing Applications to HA & Coops 8

Eviction Night:The Vibast Centre was identified and usedas an appropriate base for those beingevicted to have an opportunity to engage,focus and have a plan of action to moveforward.

At the Vibast both statutory andvoluntary sector agencies came togetherto help and assist those in need and theCouncil. We had many agencies cametogether on the night. They included: The

Salvation Army, Hill Song’s Green StopMedical Van, Islington Housing Aid Centre, Islington DAART Team, Pilion’s ECOService, Islington Children’s Services, Islington Adult Social Service, IslingtonEnvironmental Health and many other Islington Council Services.

The services and teams were ready before midnight on the night awaiting for the

Police to give directions about the operation to evict the occupiers.

Between 1am and 4am teams from the Vibast Centre went down to the Campand engaged with over 15 people to get them to move away from the Camp andbring their belongings to the safety of the Centre.

7(47%) people accessed the service and were assessed and reconnected tohousing and/or other necessary services. By 9am the following morningeveryone had accessed services and were safe.

Males 38

Females 11

Transgender 0



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Following few days:Pilion’s ECO Service receivedover 20 calls from people whowere in the camp asking for help

as they had changed their mindsabout remaining with theOccupied Movement andhomeless.

Staff gave them telephone adviceand advocated for them to accessservices to meet their needs.

Conclusion:

From the integrated working between all agencies and their opencommunications Islington Borough Council was able to action early interventionswhile keeping an open dialogue with the Occupied Movement and Protestors.

The fact that there were no arrests and no harm came to anyone on the night of the eviction is a testament to all the forward planning and all the partners thatcame together to help and support all communities and avoid the violence anddestruction witnessed at previous Occupy Movement Evictions across the World.



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Thank You:We would like to express our thanks to the following organisations and people:The Salvation Army, Hill Song’s Green Stop Medical Van, Pilion’s ECO Service,Islington Housing Aid Centre, Islington Adult Social Services, Islington Children’sServices, Islington DART Team, Patrick Odling-Smee, Jan Hart, Karen Lucas,

Margaret Gates, Steve Inskip, Chezerina Dhaliwal, Alva Bailey, Howard Garrick,Paul Jarvis, Davina Lilley, Simon Cribbens, Cllr Paul Convery, All inner LondonBorough HPUs, neighbouring Outreach teams, Islington Council Departments,Metropolitan Police and the volunteers and people who gave up their time toassist us in making the eviction as safe and secure as possible.

Written by:Howard Garrick – CoordinatorSavvas Panas – CEO Pilion TrustSebastian Taylor – Photos.

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