[Squat!net]

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Today (May11), five of our friends were arrested in an illegal eviction carried out by the Chicago Police Department under orders from management company Barnett Capital, “an alternative investment firm focusing in real estate, asset-based financing, and equipment leasing”. Barnett Capital is one of the main driving forces in the process of displacement and gentrification currently facing the Black & Brown communities of Little Village and Lawndale.

Please help our friends who were arrested today and demand that Barnett Capital drop the charges immediately, stop the intimidation, harassement, and illegal evictions taking place at our home @ 2620-2622 West Cermak Road.
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From Ill Will Editions

“[B]eneath the surface of that idea – that truism, black lives matter – is an unsettling challenge. What would it mean to create a world, or at least a space, where that actually was true?” [1]

A Cop-Free Zone in Carbondale 

On Friday night a couple dozen folks converged on the local autonomous infoshop in Carbondale, IL for an illegal dance party in the street. In addition to locals, cars arrived from Bloomington, Chicago, and St. Louis to participate. The plan was to throw an unpermitted street party with free food and loud music, and as things progressed and energy rose, to block off the street and visibly polarize the space against state violence with large handmade banners declaring it a cop-free zone.

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This is the story of the Midtown rent strike, the largest rent strike in San Francisco since 1978.
by Global Uprisings http://www.globaluprisings.org/midtown/

From Indybay

This is an escalation from a sentiment of resistance to gentrification to a direct attack against it. We join the vandals of fastagent signs, Google Bus blockades, the Midtown Apartments rent strike, and other clandestine offensives with a window smashing attack on condos in the Mission. as we expected, SF’s election season was a charade of democracy. It only showed that while the developer/colonizers feast on our City, not even the crumbs could be saved through legal means. We fight because the issue of our homes and survival is not up to a vote by anyone. survival and resistance are only there for the taking. All that is necessary is the will and the act.

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On May 29th, 2015, an eviction order was served to La Idea, a squatted social center near the Dimond District of Oakland. In two weeks, the Alameda County Sheriff will put the house on its list of upcoming evictions and will dispatch an armored personnel carrier and several armed men to the house to clear everyone out at gunpoint. In this regard, La Idea is not exceptional and thousands of people have been evicted in the same manner all over Oakland. It is simply the normal functioning of capitalism.

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The SqEK network of researchers and activists meets in Barcelona, Spain, May 21st to 25th, 2015. We present there an exhibition of posters and information presentations from and about autonomous spaces, from the squatting, occupation and disobedient movements. This show will go on to the USA in September.

We call for posters and presentations to be sent by post (please contact for address), or by digital file so that we can print them out on site.
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Note from mainstream press

Mark Stagg, a Westchester County developer, has become one of the busiest builders in the Bronx, with an ability to overcome various obstacles to his many projects.

Last year, he hired Adolfo Carrión Jr., a former Bronx borough president, to join his company, the Stagg Group, to help work with local officials. The developer owns and manages 1,200 units in the Bronx, a combination of market-rate rentals and affordable units, and has plans to add about 2,500 more units.

But one current project has proved frustrating, not because of a zoning snag or community opposition, but because of a colorful, combative 76-year-old man who has been squatting on the property.
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We noticed an OCF Realty car parked in a gentrifying neighborhood in West Philadelphia. OCF Realty is actively furthering gentrification in multiple neighborhoods and has been the target of anti-gentrification actions in the past.

We went out one night last week and slashed two of the car’s tires. This took under two minutes.

Slashing tires is a fast and easy way to cause damage to our enemies and create a small disruption in the timeline of gentrification. This will go quickly with a sharp knife stabbed with some pressure into the wall of the tire. Expect a loud, short hiss once the tire is punctured. [Read More]

More than 350 homeless Americans lived in their makeshift village, ‘The Jungle’ in San Jose, California – that is, until police and social services raided the camp, evicting tenants and destroying their self-made homes on Thursday.

Evicted homeless people lined the sidewalk along Story Road, clutching shopping carts filled with their meager possessions as they watched city workers literally rip apart their community. Some wept uncontrollably, as they asked: Where will we go now?
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Lower East Side squatter history remains a fascinating, if not controversial chapter in the book of New York’s life. So much so that there is even a museum dedicated, at least partially, to preserving the cultural significance of the bygone movement – the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space.

One upstart filmmaker hopes to capture the essence of the war between squatters and the city of New York in the last three decades. Anytime, Baby! is the result of that quest, an independent documentary on the subject through the lens of one particular battle that was endemic of the times. That of 545 East 13th Street. [Read More]

People that had squatted a house that was allegedly worth $2,610,000 were evicted on September 27th. The house was located near the corner of Fulton St and Masonic Ave, close to Golden Gate Park. Here is a report from the mainstream media:

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