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20Inside Housing12 August 2005 12August 2

A squat oftheir own

Squattingflourishedduring thehomelessnesscrisis of the1960s and70s and itssupportersbelieve itcould boomagain today.Daniel Martinfinds out why

Challenge your assumptions.What picture comes to mind when you think of a squatter? Young,

single male? Anti-social dropout? Dreadlocks maybe, perhaps a littlesmelly? And certainly selfish: hes after something for nothing and hedoesnt give two hoots about what the neighbours might think.

But how about this? Young, but in a stable relationship, perhaps witha small child. Community-minded, willing to work with others to create abetter world. And, perhaps most surprisingly, welcomed by the neighbourswith open arms.

This second description is much closer to the truth, say those who havebeen campaigning for squatters rights for the past 40 years. Squats canactually enhance a community, they say.

If this comes as a surprise to estate managers who have had to dealwith squatters moving into empty houses, Jim Paton will laugh at howtimes have changed. Mr Paton, spokesperson for the Advisory Service forSquatters, points out that many housing associations began their lives assquatting collectives in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

So what are the benefits of having a squat on your doorstep? As well ashousing a lot of people who would not otherwise be housed, squattinghelps revive deprived areas, he says.

People prefer places to be squatted than left empty, used for crackdealing or with kids running in and out. Its better for run-down estates.Squatting gives people a sense of safety and decent neighbours who areused to working together and co-operating.

And its a life-transforming experience. You learn how to worktogether, how do practical things like doing up houses, says Mr Paton.You can learn a lot of law if you get stuck in.

Ron Bailey began working with squatters 40 years ago. He sayssquatting gives people dignity.

You can see the effects of people who had felt pushed around feelingempowered, he says. Squatting helped keep families together. Andsquatting groups provided a lot of ancillary activities, from communitygardens to cafs. They created jobs.

Hes annoyed when people tell him squatting has got a bad name.It shouldnt have. No doubt some people behave anti-socially but thatstrue of every section of society. Many politicians behave anti-socially, manyreaders of Inside Housingdo. Most squatters are decent people who arejust trying to get on and behave in a highly responsible way.

Bailiffs and eviction ordersBut Jamie Carswell, cabinet member for housing at Hackney Council, sayshe doesnt recognise the picture painted by Mr Paton and Mr Bailey, atleast as regards todays squatters.

In the 70s and 80s squatting was quite different because in those daysthere were properties open for a long time, he says. But with the pressureon London nowadays, the number of long-term empty voids we have isvery few, other than on regeneration estates.

These estates, many built by the old London County Council in the1920s, contain a lot of homes which are unfit for human habitation: theyare either too small or in some cases have sewage backing up the drains.

It is on these estates that we do face systematic squatting and wevebeen taking quite an aggressive approach, says Mr Carswell. We havea number of very organised Spanish anarchists that move round ourregeneration estates. So weve been using bailiffs and eviction orders.

Hes sceptical of the claims that squatting can benefit a neighbourhood.Im not persuaded by the idea that these are happy hippie communes

Im afraid, he says. The idealised stuff of the 70s is far from the case now.These people are hard wiring their electricity so they dont have to pay.

They are not making a lifestyle choice which involves helpingthe community the anarchists are actually quite intimidating and

have been hostile to the tenants and residents. Some have beenassociated with anti-social behaviour; some of it criminal such ascrack dealing and prostitution.

Mr Bailey and fellow campaigner Jim Radford first got involved insquatting through their work in homelessness hostels in the mid-60s.The story of these two peace activists proves that in some cases directaction can achieve tangible results.

Some of these places were worse than the workhouse, recalls MrRadford of some of the squalid hostels he visited. At one hostel we wentto in Tower Hamlets you could sit on the toilet and cook your supper on thestove; it was so close. I saw one family with eight or nine kids in one room.People were cooking on the landing.

Mr Radford and Mr Bailey began to notice that, alongside startling levelsANDREWA

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of homelessness across London, there were hundreds of thousands ofempty houses, the majority owned by local authorities, that were boardedup after being compulsorily purchased in advance of town redevelopmentsand road building programmes. Many of them remained empty for yearsas funding dried up or public inquiries got in the way of council plans.

Mr Radford and his group hit upon the idea of approaching councils toallow homeless families to move in to the homes on a temporary basis,promising to move out again when the work actually started.

In Bromley we offered to take the housing officers to see empty houseswithin two minutes of the their departments offices. But always theywere rebuffed. Sometimes they didnt even look at our evidence, says MrRadford. So we decided wed do it ourselves.

In 1969 the campaign group decided to target Redbridge, in northeast London, where Ilford town centre had been boarded up for years asa development scheme ran into the sand. Desperate residents of squalidhomeless hostels were signed up, and a series of homes were broken intoand squatted. By the time the council knew about it, the locks and beenchanged, and the houses had been connected up to the mains.

Redbridge wasnt having it: to stop other houses being squatted theysent in workmen to remove staircases and saw through joists. Professionalbailiffs were employed to evict the squatters and were accused of excessiveviolence. There were pitched battles, a story repeated in the south Londonborough of Southwark where another group of squatters had moved intoempty properties.

Redbridge and Southwark brought widespread media coverage butlittle in the way of results. It was in Lewisham in the same year that thebreakthrough came.

I was keen to ensure we had an impeccable case, says Mr Radford.We wanted to choose a family with a cast iron case to avoid the right wingmedia targeting them and presenting them as undeserving spongers.

So we publicised the case of Heather, a single mother with an asthmaticchild. Lewisham had substantial houses nearby and we put her in one ofthem. We presented the council with a detailed explanation of why wehad done what we had done. And we told them we had done a deal withQuadrant Housing to house the families once they had to move out.

The councils Conservative housing committee chair Herbert Eames

reached an accommodation agreement with the squatters. They would beable to move families into empty properties free of charge as long as thesquatting group took charge of the utilities. In return, when the familieshad to move out, Lewisham would promise that their housing points bekept at pre-squatting level.

The officially-backed Lewisham Family Squatting Group was set up torun the new homes. Residents paid 3 a week to pay for electricity, gas,water and a handyman the collective employed.

After Lewisham, London boroughs were more willing to deal with thesquatters and within a couple of years there were groups in more than20 London boroughs. The Family Squatting Advisory Service, financed byShelter, was established to provide back up. And in 1974 the Department Continued on page 23

AbovebanneKentisLondoLeft: JiRon Ba

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or the GLC, now more than 40 per cent are owned by housing associations.Both councils and housing associations are guilty of keeping homesdeliberately empty after a problem family has been evicted, he says. Localauthorities create the most squats by either fobbing people off who needhousing they are very good at that or evicting people but keeping thehomes boarded up.

And he claims housing associations are virulently anti-squatting: evenmany of those which began their lives as squatting groups. One of them,says Mr Paton, is now one of the nastiest housing associations going,spending a lot of money on security to keep homes empty.

While what he would term the anti-squatting media is obsessed withthe idea that middle class homes are the target for squatters, Mr Patonsays private homes are generally not worthwhile squatting prospectsbecause they are not empty for very long. But many become so withnegative equity, when they are repossessed and stand empty. In the 90sa lot of repossessed places were squatted, but that is not happening atmoment, although it may do if there is a collapse in house prices.

Squattings heyday may be far in the past but it still has a future,believes Mr Radford. Homelessness still exists, and there are too manyhomes in the capital standing empty.

Im sad that direct action has declined. Id like to see more of it, hesays. Second homes are a big issue in rural areas and Im surprised therehasnt been more direct action about that.

Mr Bailey says the government should support squatting groups.The whole concept of community-based housing associations thats

where it all started, with squatting groups, he claims. It shows that thesolution to housing problems isnt estate based, it should be based on mutualaid. The government should do all it can to enable self-help groups to flourish.Any solution to homelessness must come from the community.

But Empty Homes Agency chief executive Jonathan Ellis isnt so sure thatsquatting is the answer. Indeed, he thinks its on the way out.

We can fully understand why people would want to squat when thereis huge housing need and empty homes standing idle, he says. But wedont condone it. Thats why we pushed so hard for compulsory leasing.

From October this year, people will be able to petition councils to bringan empty home back into use to help meet housing need. Squattinggroups should push neighbourhoods to use these powers, says Mr Ellis.

Then the house will go to people in the most housing need rather thanthe fittest person, as happens with squatting. Hopefully this will do awaywith any need for squatting.

of Environment sent round a circular urging local authorities to work withreliable squatting groups. It was a stunning victory.

Mr Radford, as the campaigns press officer, had spent years getting themedia on side. But he began to feel his work was unravelling as soon as thesquatting movement attracted the attention of hippies and rebels.

We got a lot of publicity from our confrontations, so every angry rebelflocked to our banner, he says. We had to explain to them that the objectof the exercise was not the fight but to succeed and get families intohouses and get security.

We did get involved in pitched battles but that was a last resort.The ultra radicals thought any deal was a sell out, and they helpedgive squatters a bad name.

Very soon, squatting was yet again a pejorative word. Localgroups decided to change their names, replacing the unhelpfulword with self help. In no time at all, they had morphed into officialhousing associations.

I opposed it strongly, says Mr Radford. I said people should retain theirradical roots and remember where they came from. Now Im sure manypeople involved with them wont know they used to be squatting groups.

Mr Radford and Mr Bailey left the Family Squatting Advisory Service in 1975following an internal split between those who believed the group shouldstick to supporting families on the housing register and those who believed itshould be extended to taking in single homeless people. The latt er group wonout, and the group became the Advisory Service for Squatters.

In the words of the services spokesperson Jim Paton, squatting gotmassive in the late 1970s. The group estimated that between 33,000 and35,000 people were squatting in London with other significant centresin Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Brighton and Bristol. In the capitalone half of the homes squatted were in the hands of the Greater LondonCouncil, and in 1979 the incoming Conservative ruling group issued anamnesty on all squatters on its properties. Many of these were rehoused inGLC estates. There are many estates in places like Hackney which are fullof [people who were] amnestied squatters back in 1979, claims Mr Paton.

Squatting has never reached the heights it hit 30 years ago. In theearly 1990s there were only an estimated 9,000 squatters in London,although Paton claims that now there are up to 18,000 in the capital.A third of squatting households have at least one child. Where there ishomelessness there will always be squatting, says Mr Paton.

The profile of properties which are squatted has also changed. While inthe 70s, around 90 per cent of squatted properties were owned by councilsAN

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