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 find empty buildings or land to occupy for housing. It has a long history, broken down by country below.
Fitzrovia is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of the area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urbanised in the 18th century. Its name was coined in the late 1930s by Tom Driberg.
Fitzroy Square is a Georgian square in London, England. It is the only one in the central London area known as Fitzrovia. The square is one of the area's main features, this once led to the surrounding district to be known as Fitzroy Square or Fitzroy Town and latterly as Fitzrovia, though the nearby Fitzroy Tavern is thought to have had as much influence on the name as Fitzroy Square.
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.
Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom can be found in squatted, rented, mortgaged and fully owned buildings. These self-managed social centres differ from community centres in that they are self-organised under anti-authoritarian principles and volunteer-run, without any assistance from the state. The largest number have occurred in London from the 1980s onwards, although projects exist in most cities across the UK, linked in a network. Squatted social centres tend to be quickly evicted and therefore some projects deliberately choose a short-term existence, such as A-Spire in Leeds or the Okasional Café in Manchester. Longer term social centres include the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, the Cowley Club in Brighton and the Sumac Centre in Nottingham, which are co-operatively owned.
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.
The Advisory Service for Squatters (A.S.S.) is a non-profit group based in London and run by volunteers. It aims to provide practical advice and legal support for squatters. It was founded in 1975, having grown out of the Family Squatters Advisory Service. After being based for many years in St. Paul's Road in Islington, A.S.S. moved its offices to Whitechapel High Street, in the same building as Freedom Press.
The DA! collective is an art collective that squats in London, England, co-founded by Simon and Bogna McAndrew, Stephanie Smith, Samuel Conrad, Julika Vaci, Aishlinn Dowling, Sam Padfield and Murat Bulut Aysan. After squatting in three buildings, they received national attention when they squatted a townhouse in Mayfair, Westminster, Greater London in October 2008. The property, at 18 Upper Grosvenor Street, is a 30-room grade II-listed 1730s mansion worth an estimated £6.25 million owned by the billionaire Duke of Westminster, Britain's wealthiest private landlord.
The Dutch squatting ban refers to the law introduced on 1 October 2010, under which squatting in the Netherlands became de jure illegal. Criminalization had first been proposed in the 1970s, but was opposed by the Council of Churches. In 2006, a new plan was proposed and backed by parties including VVD and PVV. When the new law was introduced, squatters occupied the former head office of the fire brigade and there were riots in Amsterdam and Nijmegen. In 2011, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands ruled that the legally forced end of squatting can only occur after an intervention of a judge. Between October 2010 and December 2014, 529 people were arrested for the act of occupying derelict buildings, in 213 separate incidents as a result of which 39 people were jailed.
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.
Bloomsbury Social Centre was the name given to a building in Bloomsbury, London, which was squatted as a self-managed social centre by students in affiliation with Occupy London, and the global Occupy movement. It was occupied on Wednesday, 23 November 2011, and evicted on Thursday, 22 December, lasting a total of 30 days. It was situated at 53 Gordon Square, in an historic six-storey Georgian Grade II-listed building, renovated by famous British architect, Charles Holden, the principal architect of nearby Senate House.
Can Vies is a building located in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona, built in 1879. It has been squatted since 1997, when a group of youths occupied it and began using it as a self-managed social centre and infoshop. In late May 2014, riots broke out in a successful attempt to stop an eviction. The building was partially demolished and rebuilt by the local community.
Athens refugee squats exist since the 2015 spike in the European migrant crisis. Greece has been a destination for migrants seeking refuge on the European continent via the "Balkan Route." Coalitions of solidarity groups and migrants have established squats throughout Athens to house refugees, demonstrating an alternative to solutions offered by the European Union and NGOs. The squats are grouped together in the Coordination of Refugee Squats. Notable projects included 5th School and City Plaza. In late 2019, the New Democracy party declared it would evict all the squats.
Squatting in Australia usually refers to a person who is not the owner, taking possession of land or an empty house. In 19th century Australian history, a squatter was a settler who occupied a large tract of Aboriginal land in order to graze livestock. At first this was done illegally, later under licence from the Crown.
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.
Squatting in the Netherlands is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. The modern squatters movement began in the 1960s in the Netherlands. By the 1980s, it had become a powerful anarchist social movement which regularly came into conflict with the state, particularly in Amsterdam with the Vondelstraat and coronation riots.
Centro Sociale Leoncavallo is a self-managed social centre in Milan, Italy, which exists since a former factory on via Leoncavallo was squatted in 1975. It was evicted and partially demolished in 1989, then quickly reoccupied and rebuilt. It was evicted again in 1994 and briefly moved to a warehouse for six months before occupying its still extant location on via Antoine Watteau. Activities include concerts, theatre, debates, exhibitions and a radio station. The centre describes itself as Leoncavallo Self-Managed Public Space.
Oval Mansions are eight separate blocks of tenement housing in Kennington, south London. The blocks stand between the Oval cricket ground and the Oval Gasholders. After being occupied by 100 squatters from 1983 until 2000, the buildings were sold off by Lambeth Council in the early 2000s.
Squatting in Spain refers to the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. In Francoist Spain migrant workers lived in slums on the periphery of cities. During the Spanish transition to democracy, residential squatting occurred in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza. From the 1980s onwards a new generation of squatters set up self-managed social centres which hosted events and campaigns. The 1995 Criminal Code among other things criminalised squatting, but failed to stop it. Social centres exist across the country and in Barcelona and Madrid in particular. In the Basque Country they are known as gaztetxes.
Squatting is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. From the 17th century onwards, there have been waves of squatting in Ukraine. In the 21st century, squatting has been practiced by different groups such as artists, anarchists, Ukrainian nationalists, displaced Crimean Tatars returning to the region and refugees created by the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.
