Squatters' Action for Secure Homes

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Squatters' Action for Secure Homes
SQUASH
PredecessorSQUASH 1990s
Formation2011
PurposeHousing activism
Region
UK
Official language
English
Website squashcampaign.org

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.

Contents

1990s

In the 1990s, SQUASH was formed in London to represent the interests of squatters in the debates over the legislation which later became the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. [1] Other groups included Justice? in Brighton.

Reformed

When the Cameron–Clegg coalition moved to criminalise squatting in the early 2010s, the reformed SQUASH became a mouthpiece for squatters across the UK. Some participants were living at Grow Heathrow. [2] It relaunched officially in May 2011. [3] SQUASH gave a parliamentary briefing alongside the Advisory Service for Squatters, homelessness charity Crisis and the Empty Homes Agency. [4]

A clause to criminalise squatting was then added to a bill with 6 days' notice and SQUASH organised a sleep-out when the bill was first voted upon in the House of Commons. The police declared it an illegal demonstration because it had not been applied for 7 days in advance and arrested 17 people. SQUASH then worked with John McDonnell to table an amendment to the proposed legislation. [3]

The Ministry of Justice organised a consultation called Options for dealing with squatting and SQUASH encouraged squatters and supporters of squatting to respond. In total there were 2,217 responses of which 2,126 were against criminalisation. Of these, 1,990 came via SQUASH. There were 91 responses in favour of criminalisation. The Ministry of Justice announced it would take a "qualitative rather than a quantitative" approach to the responses and in October 2011 recommended the criminalisation of squatting in residential buildings. [5]

In August 2012, SQUASH stated to the BBC that the number of people on local authority housing lists had almost doubled since 1997 to 5 million. They also reported that there were 650,000 empty properties across the country. [6]

SQUASH released a report called Can We Afford to Criminalise Squatting? (2012) which claimed that the costs incurred by evicting all current squatters might exceed £790 million. [7] The report suggested that the costs would far outweigh the £350 million in savings the Ministry of Justice was claiming would be saved. [8]

Criticisms

When squatting was threatened with criminalisation in the 1970s, the pro-squatting group CACTL (Campaign Against the Criminal Trespass Law) made powerful links with workers movements. Legal scholar Lucy Finchett-Maddock suggests SQUASH could have made better links with the contemporaneous student and Occupy movements. [9]

Securitization scholar Mary Manjikian states that anarchist squatters criticised SQUASH for engaging with the Government's proposals rather than ignoring them. [4]

Post-criminalisation

Squatting in residential buildings was criminalised in England and Wales by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. When the first jail sentences were handed down, SQUASH stated they were "deeply disproportionate and unjust." [10]

In 2013, 35 year old homeless man Daniel Gauntlett froze to death in Kent outside an empty bungalow. He had been warned by police not to enter. SQUASH said criminalising squatting was “the nail in Daniel’s coffin”. [11]

Six months after the criminalisation of squatting in residential buildings, SQUASH published its research into who was being arrested and why. It found there were 33 known arrests, which had led to 10 convictions and 3 jail sentences. None of these arrests involved squatters occupying homes in which people had been living, the problem which the law was supposed to be solving. A letter to the Guardian from barristers and solicitors supported SQUASH's call for the law to be repealed. [12]

SQUASH published a report in 2015 (Squatting Statistics 2015) which stated that since criminalisation there had been 738 arrests, 326 prosecutions and 260 convictions. [13]

Selected works

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">Dublin Housing Action Committee</span> 1960s protest group in Ireland

The Dublin Housing Action Committee (DHAC) was a 1960s protest group formed in response to housing shortages in Dublin, Ireland's capital city. It quickly moved to direct action and successfully squatted buildings to oppose redevelopment plans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom</span> Self-organised anti-capitalist communal spaces in the UK

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criminal Law Act 1977</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Criminal Law Act 1977 (c.45) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Most of it only applies to England and Wales. It creates the offence of conspiracy in English law. It also created offences concerned with criminal trespass in premises, made changes to sentencing, and created an offence of falsely reporting the existence of a bomb.

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.

Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 is a law in the United Kingdom criminalising possession of what it refers to as "extreme pornographic images". The law came into force on 26 January 2009. The legislation was brought in following the murder of Jane Longhurst by a man who was said at the time of his trial to have had "extreme pornography" in his possession at the time of the death. The law has been more widely used than originally predicted, raising concerns as to whether the legislation is being used for prosecutions beyond the scope originally envisaged by parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch squatting ban</span>

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.

Camelot Property Management Ltd. is a vacant property management firm started in the Netherlands in 1993. Camelot manages commercial and residential properties on behalf of landlords and property developers by assigning people to occupy vacant buildings to deter squatters.

<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">Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) is a statute of the Parliament of the United Kingdom enacted by the coalition government of 2010-2015, creating reforms to the justice system. The bill for the act was introduced in the House of Commons on 21 June 2011, and received Royal Assent on 1 May 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Focus E15</span> London-based campaign for housing justice

Focus E15 is a campaign group formed in London in 2013 by a group of mothers threatened with eviction from their emergency accommodation in a hostel for young homeless people in Newham. The group squatted empty flats on the Carpenters Estate in Stratford in September 2014, drawing widespread attention in the mainstream media. Most of the young women were eventually rehoused within the borough, as they had requested. Having won their own battle, they have continued to protest both against the local housing policy of Newham Council and for housing rights more generally. They have done so by occupying various buildings and supporting different individual struggles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in Australia</span> Occupation of land or buildings in Australia without permission of owner

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.

<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 Netherlands</span> Occupation of unused land or derelict buildings in the Netherlands

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oval Four</span>

The Oval Four are four men—Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and Constantine "Omar" Boucher—who were arrested by police at Oval tube station in March 1972 supposedly on suspicion of stealing passenger's handbags. The four were held overnight, and their trial eventually lasted five weeks. They were all found guilty of assaulting police officers and attempted theft in November 1972 and received sentences of two years in prison. Following an appeal led by John Platts-Mills, QC, their sentences were later reduced to eight months, although the convictions themselves were upheld, and Lord Justice Haymes commented that the reduction did not ameliorate the seriousness of their crimes. Christie was also convicted of stealing a female police officer's handbag. All four men subsequently appealed, which failed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amsterdamsestraatweg Water Tower</span> Water tower in Utrecht, the Netherlands

The Amsterdamsestraatweg Water Tower is located in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The water tower was built at Amsterdamsestraatweg 380 in 1916, in the style of the Amsterdam School. It became derelict in 1986 and was repeatedly squatted before its redevelopment into apartments began in 2020.

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

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.

Debbie Kilroy, née Deborah Harding, is an Australian human rights activist and prison reformer. She is known for having founded Sisters Inside, an independent community organisation based in Queensland, Australia, that advocates for the human rights of women and girls in the criminal legal system. She is a qualified lawyer, who in 2007 was the first person with serious convictions to be allowed to practise law by the Supreme Court of Queensland.

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

Squatting in Scotland is criminalised by the Trespass Act 1865. Following the Highland Clearances, land raids occurred across rural Scotland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example in Vatersay and Knoydart. More recently there have been land occupations as both road protests and as part of the Occupy movement. Baile Hoose was occupied during the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

References

  1. ↑ Evans, M. (1997). "Political Participation". In Gamble, A.; Dunleavy, P.; Peele, G. (eds.). Developments in British Politics. Vol. 5. Palgrave. ISBN   9780333677766.
  2. ↑ Rose, Steve (3 December 2012). "'Squatters are not home stealers'". Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  3. 1 2 Stephenson, Lorna; Hughes, Emma (13 December 2011). "'The government may have trampled over democracy but people will still be squatting'". Red Pepper. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  4. 1 2 Manjikian, Mary (2013). Securitization of Property Squatting in Europe. Routledge. ISBN   9781138926370.
  5. ↑ Arden, Andrew; Cafferkey, Annette. "Squatting and the extending reach of the criminal law: effective or not?". Legal Action Group. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  6. ↑ "Q&A: Squatting laws". BBC. 31 August 2012. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
  7. ↑ Cassidy, Johnny (31 August 2012). "Criminalising squatting raises homeless fears". BBC. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  8. ↑ Malik, Shiv (16 March 2012). "Squatting law reforms 'could cost taxpayers £790m over five years'". Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  9. ↑ Finchett-Maddock, Lucy (2014). "Squatting in London: Squatters' Rights and Legal Movement(s)". In Katzeff, Ask; van Hoogenhuijze, Leendert; van der Steen, Bart (eds.). The City Is Ours: Squatting and Autonomous Movements in Europe from the 1970s to the Present. PM Press. ISBN   978-1604866834.
  10. ↑ Bowcott, Owen (27 September 2012). "First squatter jailed under new law". Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  11. ↑ Gilmour, Charlie (15 October 2015). "New photography exhibition shows the tough reality of the now barely legal squatting movement" . Independent. Archived from the original on 24 May 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
  12. ↑ Various (25 March 2013). "Anti-squatting law should be repealed". Guardian. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  13. ↑ Wilson, Wendy (2017). "Evicting squatters (pdf)" (PDF). House of Commons Library. Briefing Paper 355. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
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