Frances Street Squats

Last updated

The Frances Street Squats were a set of six squatted houses, including one women-only building, that existed between February and November 1990 in Vancouver, Canada. They were occupied by SAVE (Squatters Alliance of Vancouver East) and took a stand against development which was generally supported by local people. The Vancouver Police Department evicted the buildings.

Contents

Occupation

In 1989, property developer Ning Yee purchased six houses on Frances Street in Vancouver, Canada, and evicted the tenants. [1] In February 1990, four of the six houses were squatted after they had been scheduled for demolition. [2] [3] The other two houses were then also occupied, with one being women-only. [4] The squatters set up a communal garden and a free shop. [3] Two more buildings were occupied on McLean street and quickly evicted. [5]

Thirty six people were housed in the Frances Street squats, which were named the Big House, Didley Squat, the Eco Squat, the Stein House, the Token Squat and Bush Wimmins. [5] [2] In August, Ning Yee asked the squatters to leave and in response they barricaded two of the houses in expectation of eviction. [2] The neighbours were generally supportive of the six squatted houses in a row and community organizations such as the Downtown Eastside Residents Association and the Grandview-Woodland Area Council supported them. [6] [7] [8]

The squatters formed a group called SAVE (Squatters Alliance of Vancouver East). [9] Spokesperson Penny Singh said "We will not be bullied out by uniforms, black boots and badges". [10] A SAVE press release stated "Habitable houses should not be left unoccupied". [9] They used the solidarity of their group to address the Vancouver city council about the housing crisis in the city. [8]

Eviction

The Frances Street squats were evicted on November 27, 1990, when the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) deployed over 80 officers. [3] [11] 12 were charged with mischief and obstructing a police officer. [12] Twenty five officers were from the Emergency Response Team and the city also engaged a helicopter, a bomb squad, police vans, fire engines, dumpster trucks and ambulances. [11] Constable Bob Cooper stated that the VPD had "very reliable information that radical elements have taken control of the issue" and that squatters were in possession of "three shotguns, two handguns, molotov-cocktails, and other homemade weapons". [11] [4] After searching the site for two days, the police found no weapons. [11]

Legacy

No criminal charges were made. Following the eviction, the squatters occupied the offices of the Mayor Gordon Campbell. [1] [13] Representatives of the Committee of Progressive Electors condemned the police for acting in a "inappropriate and vulgar" way at the eviction and requested a public inquiry, comparing the events to the Oka Crisis. [13] Mayor Campbell defended the actions of the police and the Vancouver Sun confirmed no weapons had been found. [13]

By April 1991, the site had been demolished. Ning Yee had sold the properties on and the former squatters were renting. [14] [1]

A documentary film, The Beat of Frances Street, was created by Eleven Foot Productions in December 1990. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting</span> Unauthorized occupation of property

Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there were one billion slum residents and squatters globally. Squatting occurs worldwide and tends to occur when people who are poor and homeless find empty buildings or land to occupy for housing. It has a long history, broken down by country below.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hafenstraße</span> Legalized squats in Hamburg, Germany

Hafenstraße is a street in St. Pauli, a quarter of Hamburg, Germany, known for its legalized squats. The squats were occupied in 1981 and became a figurehead for autonomist and anti-imperialist politics. After a prolonged battle with the city council which involved demonstrations of over 10,000 people, the buildings were legalized in the 1990s. Today they are owned by a self-organised cooperative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa Amalia (Athens)</span>

Villa Amalia is the name of the building that hosted the former Second High School of Athens in Greece. It is located on the corner of Acharnon and Heiden streets, near Victoria metro station. It was an anarchist squat before its eviction in 2012. It reopened as a school in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Agnes Place</span> Demolished street in Kennington, south London

St Agnes Place was a squatted street in Kennington, south London, which resisted eviction orders for more than 30 years. When a number of derelict houses were scheduled for demolition to extend Kennington Park in 1969, squatters occupied the properties and a High Court injunction prevented the demolition. The street was run by a housing cooperative until 2005, when Lambeth London Borough Council obtained an eviction order. Demolition was completed in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vancouver Police Department</span> Municipal police of Vancouver

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is the police force for the City of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several police departments within the Metro Vancouver Area and is the second largest police force in the province after RCMP "E" Division.

London Street Commune was a hippy movement formed during the 1960s. It aimed to highlight concerns about rising levels of homelessness and to house the hundreds of hippies sleeping in parks and derelict buildings in central London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Star Hotel</span> Defunct hotel in Vancouver, Canada

The North Star hotel is a former hotel at the southern edge of Gastown in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Located at 5 West Hastings Street, it is a four-story red brick Victorian Italianate construction completed at an unidentified date, between the 1890s and 1904.

Dos Blockos was a squat situated at 713 East 9th Street in Alphabet City, Manhattan, New York City. In active use as a squat from 1992 onwards, the six-story building housed up to 60 people at its peak, including Brad Will. The building funded repairs by being a set for movies including Trainspotting. The squatters were evicted in 1999 and the building was converted into a commercial apartment building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in England and Wales</span> Occupation of unused land or derelict buildings in England and Wales

In England and Wales, squatting—taking possession of land or an empty house the squatter does not own—occurs for a variety of reasons which include needing a home, protest, poverty, and recreation. Many squats are residential; some are also opened as social centres. Land may be occupied by New Age travellers or treesitters.

Historically, squatting occurred in the United States during the California Gold Rush and when colonial European settlers established land rights. There was squatting during the Great Depression in Hoovervilles and also during World War II. Shanty towns returned to the US after the Great Recession (2007–2009) and in the 2010s, there were increasing numbers of people occupying foreclosed homes using fraudulent documents. In some cases, a squatter may be able to obtain ownership of property through adverse possession.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 Bendigo Street housing dispute</span>

The 2016 Bendigo Street housing dispute concerned a series of occupations of houses in Collingwood, Melbourne, Australia. The properties were owned by the Victorian Government which had made aborted plans to construct the East West Link road. The houses, mostly on Bendigo Street, became the centre of a lengthy dispute between the government, Victoria Police and the Homeless Persons Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vondelstraat riots</span>

The Vondelstraat riots were violent disturbances on Vondelstraat in Amsterdam, the Netherlands between squatters and the state in March 1980. It also involved the deployment of military tanks on the streets for the first time since World War II, and was one of the most serious disturbances involving squatters in the country.

Squatters' Action for Secure Homes (SQUASH) is an activist group formed first in the 1990s in the United Kingdom to represent the interests of squatters and to fight the proposed criminalisation of squatting. It then reformed in 2011, when there were again parliamentary discussions about making squatting illegal. After squatting was (partially) criminalised in 2012, the group continues to monitor arrests and convictions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in Ireland</span> Occupying without permission

Squatting in the Republic of Ireland is the occupation of unused land or derelict buildings without the permission of the owner. In the 1960s, the Dublin Housing Action Committee highlighted the housing crisis by squatting buildings. From the 1990s onwards there have been occasional political squats in Cork and Dublin such as Grangegorman, the Barricade Inn, the Bolt Hostel, Connolly Barracks, That Social Centre and James Connolly House.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in the Czech Republic</span> Occupation of unused land or derelict buildings in the Czech Republic

Squatting became a political phenomenon in the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Squats in Prague included Sochora, Stary Střešovice and Ladronka. Milada was occupied in 1998 and following its final eviction in 2009, there was a lull in squatting actions. In the 2010s a new social movement squatted houses to highlight the number of derelict properties in Prague and the social centre Klinika was founded in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liebig 34</span> Former anarchist squat in Berlin

Liebig 34 was an anarchist squat at Liebigstraße 34 in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district of Berlin. It was occupied in 1990 and cleared by eviction in 2020. The squat hosted an anarcha-feminist housing co-operative, the L34-Bar and an infoshop called Daneben on the ground floor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Mainzer Straße</span> 1990 riots in East Berlin

The battle of Mainzer Straße took place in Friedrichshain, East Berlin between 12 and 14 November 1990. It was a major incident in the history of the city, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The magistrate of East Berlin decided to evict a row of squatted apartment blocks and the autonomous movement resisted the eviction for three days, until the buildings were all evicted by the police. One person was wounded by a ricochet and 417 people were arrested in an operation of over 3,000 officers. Following the riots, the magistrate decided to concentrate on legalizing squats in Berlin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in Albania</span> Occupation of unused buildings

Squatting in Albania began on a large scale in the 1990s after the fall of communism, with internal migration towards formerly collectivised farmland establishing informal settlements. One such area, Bathore on the periphery of the capital Tirana, had 40,000 squatters by the early 2000s who successfully campaigned for better amenities. Other squatters occupied severely polluted post-industrial sites. The Agency of Legalization, Upgrading, and Integration of Informal Zones and Buildings (ALUIZNI) had legalized 16,500 homes on 152 settlements by 2009. As of 2020, 25 per cent of the population of Albania's cities lived in informal settlements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in Cambodia</span>

Squatting in Cambodia is the occupation of derelict buildings or unused land without the permission of the owner. Following the Khmer Rouge and the Pol Pot regime, the new democratic government introduced land reform. In the capital Phnom Penh, where in 2003 an estimated 25 per cent of the population was squatting, there are informal settlements and occupied buildings.

The modern political squatting movement began in Hamburg, Germany, when Neue Große Bergstraße 226 was occupied in 1970. Squatters wanted to provide housing for themselves amongst other demands such as preventing buildings from being demolished and finding space for cultural activities. The Hafenstraße buildings were first occupied in 1981 and were finally legalized after a long political struggle in 1995. The still extant Rote Flora self-managed social centre was occupied in 1989. Squatting actions continue into the present; more recent attempts are quickly evicted, although the Gängeviertel buildings were squatted and legalized in the 2010s.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Ward, Doug (15 December 1990). "Post Squatting Depression". The Vancouver Sun.
  2. 1 2 3 Ward, Doug (16 August 1990). "Squatters remain after deadline". The Vancouver Sun.
  3. 1 2 3 Wulwik, Lisa (2004). Vidaver, Aaron (ed.). "Squatting as an organizing tool". West Coast Line. 37 (2–3): 18–19. ISSN   1182-4271.
  4. 1 2 3 Markiewicz, Jakub (May 24, 2016). "Short-lived housing squat in Vancouver: A sign of things to come?". Ricochet. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  5. 1 2 Kines, Lindsay (1 November 1990). "Residents of Didley Squat feel their way of life is 'cool'". The Vancouver Sun .
  6. ↑ Dayson, Paul (2 August 1990). "Squatters Face Homelessness". open.library.ubc.ca. The Ubyssey. p. 3. Archived from the original on 2020-02-11. Retrieved 2021-03-02.
  7. ↑ Kines, Lindsay (2 November 1990). "Few residents opposed to Frances squat plot". The Vancouver Sun.
  8. 1 2 MacArthur, Jessica (August 16, 1990). "Squatters Take Action - The Story of The Frances Street Squats" (PDF). Subyssey. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  9. 1 2 Baxter, Sheila (1991). Under the viaduct: Homeless in beautiful B.C. Vancouver: New Star Books. ISBN   9780921586159.
  10. ↑ Lamb, Jamie (14 August 1990). "Jamie Lamb". The Vancouver Sun.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Graham, Cameron (30 November 1990). "Police Assault Unarmed Squatters". The Ubyssey. p. 3. Archived from the original on 2020-03-01. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  12. ↑ Chester, Martin (January 8, 1991). "Squatting: Public and Publicized". The Ubyssey . p. 7. Archived from the original on February 26, 2020. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
  13. 1 2 3 Lee, Jeff (29 November 1990). "Squatter ousting called 'our little Oka'". The Vancouver Sun.
  14. ↑ Lamb, Jamie (11 April 1991). "Bulldozers flatten site once occupied by squatters". The Vancouver Sun.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.