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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. A variation is Street Squatting which is the action of occupying public areas without lawful permission, such as outdoor parks or streets. It has a long history, broken down by country below.
John Steven Bassam, Baron Bassam of Brighton, is a British Labour and Co-operative politician and a member of the House of Lords.
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.
In the history of Australia, squatting was the act of extrajudicially occupying tracts of Crown land, typically to graze livestock. Though most squatters initially held no legal rights to the land they occupied, the majority were gradually recognised by successive colonial authorities as the legitimate owners of the land due to being among the first white settlers in their area. The term squattocracy, a play on aristocracy, was coined to refer to squatters as a social class and the immense sociopolitical power they possessed.
Medina House is a former Turkish bath on the seafront of Hove, Sussex, England. After falling into disuse it was squatted for several years. During this period Sirus Taghan, the then owner, agreed that the occupants could remain so long as the property was kept in the same condition as before occupation. The squatters were eventually evicted in September 2006, although the property was re-occupied for a week at the end of January 2007.
C-Squat is a former squat house located at 155 Avenue C in the Alphabet City neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City that has been home to musicians, artists, and activists, among others. After a fire, it was taken into city ownership in 1978 and squatters moved in in 1989. The building was restored in 2002 and since then it has been legally owned by the occupants. Its ground-floor storefront now houses the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space.
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.
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) is a not-for profit museum founded by the Times Up! Environmental Organization in 2012. It is dedicated to archiving the history of community gardens, squatting, and grassroots environmental activism of the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Located in the storefront of C-Squat at 155 Avenue C, the museum documents how neighborhood residents transformed abandoned spaces and lots in the neighborhood into squats and gardens. By preserving the neighborhood's history, the museum aims to educate communities and individuals to keep this form of sustainable, community-based activism alive.
Umbrella House is a former squat and a Housing Development Fund Corporation in New York City's East Village, at 21-23 Avenue C. The squat, formed in 1988, was known for its political engagement and high level of collective organization among its members. In 2010, the building officially became a housing cooperative.
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.
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 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.
Montpelier Place Baptist Church, originally known as the Baptist Tabernacle, is a former Baptist church in the Montpelier area of Brighton, part of the English seaside city of Brighton and Hove. It opened in 1967 to replace a 140-year predecessor on West Street in central Brighton, but was closed in 2012 and demolished over the 2017–2018 Christmas and New Year period. Houses and flats now occupy the site; the development was completed in December 2019.
Ladronka is a homestead situated in a park in Břevnov, Prague 6, in the Czech Republic. Built by Charles IV in 1340, it was bought by an Italian count, then owned by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta before being broken into flats during the communist period. It was then squatted in 1993, becoming an internationally famous anarchist, self-managed social centre. The squatters organised gigs, exhibitions, readings and theatre, before being evicted in 2000 following the anti-globalization protests in Prague. After several years of renovation, Ladronka was re-opened as a leisure centre in 2005, serving the surrounding park.
Tony Greenstein is a British left-wing activist and writer. An anti-fascist and former squatter, he was a founder member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and stood for parliament as a representative of the Alliance for Green Socialism. In 2018, he was expelled from the Labour Party for "harassment" and "abusive language", following accusations of antisemitism.
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.
Squatting in Brazil is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. After attempting to eradicate slums in the 1960s and 1970s, local governments transitioned to a policy of toleration. Cities such as Recife, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have large informal settlements known as favelas. A more recent phenomenon is the occupation of buildings in city centres by organised groups. In rural areas across the country, the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) arranges large land occupations.
Urban areas in the Philippines such as Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao have large informal settlements. The Philippine Statistics Authority defines a squatter, or alternatively "informal dwellers", as "One who settles on the land of another without title or right or without the owner's consent whether in urban or rural areas". Squatting is criminalized by the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992, also known as the Lina Law. There have been various attempts to regularize squatter settlements, such as the Zonal Improvement Program and the Community Mortgage Program. In 2018, the Philippine Statistics Authority estimated that out of the country's population of about 106 million, 4.5 million were homeless.
During the colonial occupation of Kenya, Black Africans working on farms owned by white settlers were called "squatters" by the British. As of 1945, there were over 200,000 such squatters in the Highlands and more than half were Kikuyu. The Mau Mau rebellion began amongst these squatters in the late 1940s and after independence in the early 1960s, peasants started squatting land in rural areas without the permission of the owner.
References
- ↑ McIntyre, Iain (2018). "A short history of squatting in Australia". In Squatting Everywhere Kollective (SqeK) (ed.). Fighting for spaces, Fighting for our lives: Squatting Movements today. Edition assemblage. ISBN 978-3-942885-90-4.
- ↑ "Quadrant". H.R. Krygier. September 28, 1989 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Vasudevan, Alexander (May 16, 2017). The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting. Verso Books. ISBN 9781781687871 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Wates, Nick; Wolmar, Christian (1980). Squatting: the Real Story. London: Bay Leaf Books. ISBN 0-9507259-0-0.
- ↑ d'Enno, Douglas (2007). Brighton crime and vice, 1800-2000. Grub Street Publishers. ISBN 9781783408108.
- ↑ Greenstein, Tony (31 January 2014). "40 years on: Memories of student protests, squatting, and street politics". www.brightonandhoveindependent.co.uk. Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 6 December 2019.
- 1 2 Parsons, Ben (12 February 2012). "Pressure mounting for licensed squats". The Argus. Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 6 December 2019.
- ↑ Dobbz, Hannah (November 27, 2012). Nine-tenths of the Law: Property and Resistance in the United States. AK Press. ISBN 9781849351195 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Buss, James Joseph (July 29, 2013). Winning the West with Words: Language and Conquest in the Lower Great Lakes. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806150406 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Collins, William Frederick (September 28, 1997). "John Tipton and the Indians of the Old Northwest". Purdue University – via Google Books.
- ↑ Chatterton, Paul; Hollands, Robert (2003). Urban nightscapes : youth cultures, pleasure spaces and corporate power. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415283465.
- ↑ "Umbrella House: East Village Co-op Run by Former Squatters". New York Times. 19 July 2015. Retrieved 6 December 2019.