In a packed meeting in Hackney on Saturday 24th May, dozens of people watched and listened intently while Juan Haro, an activist from the Movement for Justice in El Barrio, gave an account via video link of the struggle of his community in Harlem, New York, to defend their homes from unscrupulous landlords and housing corporations. The use of the video link was a last minute addition after Juan, who had been giving a talk in Paris, was refused a visa to re-enter the UK by hostile immigration officials.

The residents of El Barrio, an area predominantly made up of working class Latin American migrants and African-Americans, began a courageous campaign to resist the process of gentrification taking place in their neighbourhood – a process seeking to displace the poor inhabitants of the area in favour of higher-income people. The grassroots campaign, which has taken on local, federal and state politicians in their demand for decent housing for low-income people, began to focus on the business interests behind the efforts to displace them. They discovered that 47 buildings in the area had recently been bought by the Dawnay Day Group. This multibillion dollar housing corporation, with assets of $4 Billion according to its own website, primarily owns commercial properties in Europe and Asia and is based in London. While the previous landlord of these 47 housing blocks had left them to deteriorate, leading to squalid conditions, following the sale of the buildings inhabitants were offered cash incentives to leave voluntarily, with the intention thereafter of increasing rents tenfold in order to lure rich tenants into the area.

Realising that their community was being treated as an obstacle to extracting greater profits for big business, the Movement for Justice in Defense of El Barrio organised a number of marches and demonstrations outside City Hall. Inspired by la Otra Campaña (the Other Campaign) of the Zapatistas in Mexico, a broad-based coalition of groups resisting repression and challenging neoliberal policies such as privatisation, the Movement for Justice in El Barrio adopted a horizontal and participatory organisational structure, which recognised that the struggle for decent housing can take many forms. Organised according to residents committees based in each block, different groups support each other to pursue different strategies. For example, one group might decide to fight a court battle to defend their homes, while others focus on holding demonstrations and other actions. The guiding principle behind the movement remains that the residents should represent themselves and not allow themselves to be coopted or spoken for by ‘experts’ or politicians.

Members of the London meeting drew parallels with similar processes taking place in London, in particular, the rapidly progressing gentrification of Dalston and other parts of Hackney, where poorer people are being priced out of an area which is becoming increasingly polarised between neglected estates on the one hand and ever-increasing numbers of luxury flats on the other. Audience members also drew attention to alleged council plans to close the popular Ridley Road Market in Dalston, made up of African, Asian, and West Indian food stalls that is crucial to the vibrancy of the area and provides cheap food to people. Another man pointed out problems facing Latinos in London, particularly in Seven Sisters, where the market at Wards Corner is threatened with closure in order to build private flats. Meanwhile in Elephant and Castle, frequent police raids and deportations of undocumented workers are putting pressures on a community in an area that is also undergoing rapid ‘regeneration’. Underlying much of this discussion was a deep disquiet about the London Olympics and a mistrust of corporate-driven regeneration in general.

The fact that the meeting was not particularly representative of Hackney’s ethnic mix notwithstanding, several positive things came from it. In particular a commitment was made to build towards a demonstration in solidarity with the people of El Barrio outside Dawnay Day HQ in Grosvenor Square, Victoria, on the 4th October. In addition, several Hackney and Haringey -based groups stated their intention to continue campaigning on housing issues in North and East London, including exposing the dire conditions in many of Hackney’s hostels. The meeting was a snapshot of the growing resistance to the privatisation of public housing and space in London and beyond and the desire for decent housing for all.