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.
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.
Christian Tage Forter Wolmar is a British journalist, author, railway historian and Labour Party politician. He is known for his commentary on transport, especially as a pundit on Britain's railway industry, and was named Transport Journalist of the Year in the National Transport Awards in 2007. He is an advocate for cycling, and is on the board of the London Cycling Campaign as well as having founded Labour Cycles, which encourages the Labour Party to adopt a pro-cycling agenda.
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.
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.
Squatting in the United States is the unauthorized use of real estate. Historically, squatting occurred 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.
Huntley Street is a street in Bloomsbury, London, known for its close association with University College Hospital.
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.
A squatters union, settlers association, or claimant club, is an organization of homesteaders or squatters established to protect their interests and property rights. They have been formed in the Australia, England, Poland and the United States.
Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World is a 2004 book by Robert Neuwirth. He wrote it after visiting informal settlements such as Dharavi, Kibera and Rocinha.
Squatting in Malaysia is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. Squatting began after World War II and is governed by various laws. Recently the government has announced its intention to house squatters in affordable housing.
Squatting in Zimbabwe is the settlement of land or buildings without the permission of the owner. Squatting began under colonialism. After Zimbabwe was created in 1980, peasant farmers and squatters disputed the distribution of land. Informal settlements have developed on the periphery of cities such as Chitungwiza and the capital Harare. In 2005, Operation Murambatsvina evicted an estimated 700,000 people.
Squatting in the Philippines occurs when people build makeshift houses called "barong-barong"; urban areas such as Metro Manila and Metro Davao have large informal settlements. The Philippine Statistics Authority has defined 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.
Squatting in Thailand was traditionally permissible under customary law and adverse possession can occur after ten years of continuous occupation. As of 2015, the capital Bangkok had over 2 million squatters, out of a population of around 10 million. A survey of slums across the country noted in 2000 that most were rented not squatted; Khlong Toei District in Bangkok contains both squatters and tenants. There are also squatters in rural areas. The 1975 Agricultural Land Reform Act aimed to redistribute land to poor people under the Sor Por Kor program and as of 2019, 36 million rai of land had been assigned.
Squatting in Liberia is one of three ways to access land, the other being ownership by deed or customary ownership. West Point was founded in Monrovia in the 1950s and is estimated to house between 29,500 and 75,000 people. During the First Liberian Civil War 1989–1997 and the Second Liberian Civil War 1999–2003, many people in Liberia were displaced and some ended up squatting in Monrovia. The Ducor Hotel fell into disrepair and was squatted, before being evicted in 2007. Recently, over 9,000 Burkinabés were squatting on remote land and the Liberia Land Authority (LLA) has announced it will be titling all land in the country.
Squatting in Taiwan is the occupation of unused land or derelict buildings without the permission of the owner. Squatting was fuelled by migrants from China from the 1950s onwards and in addition cities such as the capital Taipei were swelled by internal migrants from the countryside. In order to create Daan Forest Park, 12,000 squatters were evicted. The informal settlement at Treasure Hill has been recognized as cultural heritage.
Squatting in the island country of Antigua and Barbuda in the West Indies is the occupation of unused land or derelict buildings without the permission of the owner. Historically, native Barbudans were seen as squatters and after Hurricane Irma in 2017, Prime Minister Gaston Browne offered people he termed squatters the chance to buy their land.
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.
Villa Road is a street in Lambeth, south London. The row of terraced houses was built in the Victorian era and scheduled to be demolished in the late 1960s as part of a development plan. From 1973 onwards, houses were squatted and an alternative community containing anarchists, British Black Panthers, feminists, Marxists, primal screamers and single mothers. Lambeth Council applied for possession orders for most of the buildings on the street in June 1976 and the squatters built barricades to resist eviction. After prolonged negotiations the council decided to legalize the occupation in 1978, but only after demolishing the southern side of the street. In 2006, the former squatters were profiled in the documentary film "Property is Theft" as part of the BBC series Lefties.
Ann Pettitt is an English activist. With other women she started the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp by marching from Cardiff to RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire in 1981. She published the 2006 book Walking to Greenham.
