[Squat!net]

Just over a year ago, a masked crowd looted the yuppie grocery store attached to the “3734” restaurant on Notre-Dame street and redistributed the food to people in the neighborhood, one of dozens of actions against gentrification in recent years. The grocery store shut down several months ago, but we noticed that the 3734 restaurant was still serving business lunches and expensive dinners to local yuppies. So last Wednesday night we paid them a visit, breaking a window and covering the inside of the restaurant with paint, using a fire extinguisher. [Read More]

“Housing is a need, not a privilege”, “Housing for people, not for profit”. Banners with slogans like these hang from windows in any number of European cities. Across Europe, increasing social inequality is making some urban spaces inaccessible to those who used to inhabit them. Gentrification, corporatization and so-called “urban regeneration” projects are leading to the demolition of social and accessible housing, replaced by unaffordable apartments. This leads to the increased eviction and displacement of tenants from their homes and their relocation to the suburbs and peripheries.

Houses, once owned by councils or their occupants, have become investment opportunities for large corporations. With up to 200,000 living spaces intentionally kept vacant in the UK, houses are being stripped of their social value and becoming objects to secure the elites’ wealth. Workers in precarious positions, families, low wage households and students are being displaced or made homeless, while surrounded by vacant properties. [Read More]

Last night the Dagelijks Bestuur of the Central city district made a decision about the future of the Torensluis. The district wants to begin renovations soon, after which neighborhood groups will be abloe to sign a contract with them. As soon as the necessary permits have been obtained (which will probably be around May or June), the district will no longer tolerate us in the space.

The negotiations about a joint plan for the future use of the space were reaching their final stage in November 2016 when our negotiating partners, Stadsdorp 7 and Brug9buurt abruptly left the talks. It turned out that they did not want to sign our jointly devised plan because they wanted to submit their own proposal.

Contrary to the proposal of our former negotiating partners, the Spinhuis Collective wanted to keep the space open for use by a range of groups. We therefore saw the necessity of submitting our own proposal, in which we articulated our vision about public space in the city, specifically in the Torensluis. We therefore went in search of other socially engaged projects for possible collaborations. Neighborhood center D’Oude Stadt and Stichting Het Gespuis, both of whom have been forced to find a new space because of the commercialization of the city center, indicated their willingness to work with us in the future. [Read More]

On the 22nd of September, the residents of Eerste Oosterparkstraat 88-126 were evicted from their homes. Construction work has started to demolish the buildings. It will be replaced by a new block of houses and businesses. We have lived here for three years in a squatted house and we have decided to speak up about what is going on.

The first step to gentrifying the neighborhood begins by evicting and demolishing existing homes and building new, often ugly block houses. House rents will increase and the neighborhood will fill up with rich yuppies. The original inhabitants will be forced to leave their homes and move out of town. The plans to renovate the neighborhood for profit forces people out of Amsterdam. This is social cleansing designed to eliminate social and cultural diversity, and further impoverish the low-wage workers, the unemployed, the homeless.

Owner of these houses is Stadgenoot, a public housing corporation. This corporation owns 40.000 houses, office spaces, storage spaces and garages. It is known for contributing to the nationwide decimation of affordable housing and tenant rights. They bypass tenant rights by using all kinds of flexible temporary contracts, anti-squat, temporary leases and campus contracts thereby by circumventing rent control, while at the same time decreasing the number of houses that used to be social rent. [Read More]

Evicting in neighborhood with 300 empty houses is useless.

Last weekend two new houses were occupied on the Monnetlaan in Kanaleneiland, Utrecht. Those homes were empty awaiting renovation in March. “It seems vacancy protector VPSitex considers metal plates a good way to protect vacancy, we think it’s not.” says one of the squatters.

The first eight houses, Monnetlaan 97-111 were occupied last April in protest agents racist policy of gentrification in this neighborhood. 1100 affordable houses would be demolished because renovation was impossible. Of the replacing new houses only 25% would be social rent. When the social housing corporation ‘foundation Mitros’ almost bankrupted itself and government took over financial responsibility, this megalomaniacal project was dropped. The local government nor the housing corporations knew what to doo with those 224 social houses where they already kicked out the renters. Ultimately they were sold for € 0,- to the Qatari- Swiss asset trust Aventicum. Interesting to note is that this company’s head of real estate is the west- Flemish prodigy Christophe Tanghe, yes the same one that run ING bank to the ground when he run real estate there. This asset trust will renovate the houses; well… they will replace the windows. After that you may buy a 70 square meter house for € 140.000,- with the obligation to finish the renovation within two years. Some of the houses may become open market tent, € 1.200,- a month. Non available for low income groups. [Read More]

Wednesday July 13, there is a court case in Utrecht about the squatted houses on Monnetlaan. The buildings were squated in April out of protest against the gentrification of Kanaleneiland. Everyone who has affinity with this story, or is interested in the courtcase, is welcome to witness the courtcase itself. The squatters and supporters will be in front of the courthouse from 8.30, the courtcase itself begins at 9 o’ clock.
Utrecht is finishing a large scale gentrification project that has wiped out 9500 social houses. Kanaleneiland Centrum is one of these projects, where 1100 sociale houses have been demolished. This project is now ending, the squatted have occupied the building which will be the last to be renovated. [Read More]

Rigaer 94 occupied center in Berlin symbolizes the struggle for a practical alternative to rampant insane predator capitalism. Police complained that more than 120 officers were injured on Saturday (one had a bruise on his arm) and some 86 demonstrators were violently arrested during popular defence in the German capital which mercenary police complained was ‘the most aggressive and violent resistance in the last five years’.

see also: Berlin: Rigaer 94 Action Day

Berlin state propaganda officials said in a statement Sunday that evil leftist protesters threw bottles, cobble stones and fireworks at the, attacking officers in full protective riot gear and hurt them with fists and kicks.

They declined to say how many brave demonstrators were hurt by the 1000’s of ‘overzealous’ fully armed hysterical police on overtime double-pay. The day’s headlines went planetwide on commercial media ..”Anarchist terrorists hurt over 120 nice innocent Policemen’‘. [Read More]

In cooperation with Crna Luknja, the anarchist radio show on Radio Student in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, we produced the following interview on the ongoing struggle against the attempted eviction of Rog, a former bicycle factory and an active squat for 10 years now. The interview focuses on the resistance against the attempts of eviction by the city as well as Nazi attacks and also on the political framework right now in Slovenia.

Length: 11:55 min

You can download the audio at: archive.org (wav | mp3 | ogg).

Here you can listen to it directly:

Here is the website of ROG (with information in different languages). [Read More]

From Montreal Counter-Info

A balade for de-gentrification took to the streets of Saint-Henri on the evening of May 28, 2016. About 30 people, all in black bloc, strolled down rue Notre-Dame and looted the yuppie boutique grocery store “Le 3734”. As most of the crowd held down the street outside the store, a few people went inside and filled duffel bags with fresh and dry sausages, cheese, maple syrup, and other items. Meanwhile, the storefront was redecorated with graffiti reading ‘Fuck Empire’ and wheatpasted posters that communicated some of the intentions behind the action. After throwing smoke bombs ahead of and behind the crowd on Notre-Dame, people dispersed via the train tracks before police could arrive, and no arrests have been made. In the days that followed, we re-distributed the food to people in the neighborhood who wouldn’t regularly have had access to it. The poster left behind read as follows:

With the arrival of the condos in Saint-Henri, a multitude of expensive businesses, hipster restaurants, and bourgeois grocery stores followed. Nevertheless, despite this affluence of food, the neighborhood remains practically a food desert for people with little money. Such a paradox it is to live in a world that produces so much food, but that isn’t accessible for those who are hungry!

May 28^th, we tried to recalibrate things a bit, to the extent of our means. We put on masks to protect our identity, we entered one of these extravagant businesses, we took everything we could and we left to redistribute the goods joyously in the neighborhood. Inspired by the recent actions against the police in different neighborhoods and knowing that they were going to show up to protect the property owners, we brought what we needed to protect ourselves.

Everyone deserves to eat well and there is enough food for everyone! It is with great pleasure that we organized this pillaging, which is a slap in the face to the forces that impoverish and starve us. We invite everyone to do the same!

Long live de-gentrication!

Tonight is the great banquet, we celebrate complicity and abundance!

Last week, eight apartment flats were squatted in Kanaleneiland. The flatslocated at Monnetlaan (within the so-called “Eiland 8” block) are the property of the city of Utrecht, and are managed by housing corporations Mitros and Portaal who want to transform the flats into free housing sector apartments for rent and for sale.
The squatters disagree with the way former renters have been treated, and are against the gentrification of the city.
Before, there were 224 social renting apartments in this blok, which the former renters had to leave in due to demolition, as a result of the long-term neglect of the homes. These plans are part of a big-scale gentrification that is taking place in Utrecht (and the rest of the Netherlands).
Based on the “leegstandswet” (“vacancy law”). The temporary renters put into the appartments, were promised, in writing, to be allowed to stay until demolition. This is how project Eiland 8 came into being, realized by Wolf huisvestingsgroep and Sophies Kunstprojecten.
Eventually, there didn’t seem to be sufficient money from the city of Utrecht to be able to build the new constructions so, the project was then sold to the Swiss-Quatarese asset management company Aventicum, that hired construction company Heijmans to have the places refurbished thoroughly. [Read More]

Today we talked about the current squatting action on Bendigo Street in Collingwood where the Homeless Persons Union of Victoria (HPUVIC) and supporters are occupying empty houses owned by the state government, and briefly discussed the squatting history of Melbourne.

Listen to the Girls Radio Offensive show from April 4th 2016: https://www.mixcloud.com/girlsradiooffensive/4-april-2016/ [Read More]

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/