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When you threaten One you threaten All: Eviction Succesfully Resisted in Bristol

Bristol Resident | 28.10.2008 17:24 | Free Spaces | Social Struggles

An attempted illegal eviction occurred this afternoon at Unity Home, number 87 Ashley Road, St Pauls, Bristol. IT WAS RESISTED

NO
NO

Oh Yes!
Oh Yes!

Threaten One Threaten All
Threaten One Threaten All

No Pasaran
No Pasaran

No Really
No Really

Not Leavin
Not Leavin

Not At All
Not At All

We Are Everywhere
We Are Everywhere

In every window of every house
In every window of every house

Never
Never


Ownership of the house is claimed by Places for People, Britain’s largest housing association. Its chief executive, David Cowans, topped the list of richest “social” housing providers with a salary of £257,928 in 2007 (Every single penny on the backs of the poor). Instead of providing adequate social housing they work for corporate gain and through speculation with our money are feeling the pinch of the property market crash. This is a social housing provider playing with public money.

Number 87 is actually owned by Places for People’s charitable arm (Places for People Individual Support), which is supposed to provide housing for homeless and the elderly. They plan to turn the majority of the house into private owned apartments. It currently is housing 20+ people.

It has been empty for over 3 years and squatted by a large number of otherwise homeless people since April 2008.

At 12.00pm today (28 Oct 2008), baliffs acting for Places for People arrived – shortly to be accompanied by the police – demanding that the residents be out by 12.30pm. They claimed paperwork had been sent through to the occupants, but in fact no notice of eviction had come through. This was an illegal attempt at making people homeless and was answered with solidarity.

A critical mass of people began to build in response to those resisting the illegal eviction and by about 1.30pm there were between 30-50 people outside the gates on Ashley Road, with many many more inside, ready to resist what the bailiffs and police were preparing.

People took to the roof, occupied spaces in windows, defended the doors – fortifying the building. A banner was dropped explaining: WHEN YOU THREATEN ONE YOU THREATEN ALL – for the defence of squats and autonomous spaces. Against companies like Places for People – Britain’s most commercialised, corrupt landlord.

A stand off ensued and eventually by around 2.00pm the bailiffs and police departed the scene. A beautiful victory for solidarity in resisting the corporate takeover of our city.

This eviction threat is imminent and all support is needed.

The residents of the building have made repeated attempts to negotiate a settlement with P4P but commercial gain seems their only aim. The residents ask all those who believe in housing for all and the stand against gentrification to join them.


Squatters and residents together against corrupt landlords!

Bristol Resident

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

WTF?, evicting at start of winter,in a recession&housing market down,doesnt make

28.10.2008 19:27

sense. Nice one to the anarchists, shame about the silly V mask. It seems to be anarchists who stand up for equality & justice, something the law & parliament proclaim they are their to defend. We need more real democracy in politics &ecoomics.

James

Well done, inspiring.

28.10.2008 19:52

.

Sim1

bvcnx

30.10.2008 14:53

well done ,well done i wish i was there. greetings from amsterdam

kristoff ninja

Support the Sustainable Communities Bill!

31.10.2008 14:19

The new SCB allows people to actually have power in issues like this - very important: huge homeless problem and huge empty buildings. Very easy to add 2 and 2 and say they should have people in them, but not when the perception people have of squatting and CSOAs is that it wrecks the property, encourages use of hard drugs and/or antagonises the owner - how receptive will the majority of people be then to new laws or proposals to allow people the right to live in houses that would otherwise be empty?

I think the best thing is when squatters have contacted owners and agreed with them that they will take care of the place, even giving them a list of what they would fix... Or Artspace/lifespace with their creative blagging of buildings off the council or others for great creative uses - everyone comes out a winner as then you get to do more ambitious projects than just squatting with eternal fear of eviction and one-offs.

The SCB forces local councils to "try to reach agreement" with community groups, and it forces central government to assist them - and if a representative community group were to, for example, try to reach an agreement with the council on how empty local buildings should be used, and perhaps a social contract between owners and users of buildings, you could have a much less confrontational, but potentially much more useful agreement for all houses in the area.

 http://www.localworks.org/ - for more info on the Sustainable Communities Bill

About the comments on gentrification - I agree gentrification can be negative, but positive gentrification can be very useful - a well meaning lawyer who could be seen as an enemy for moving in next to you might be just the person to present an argument in a language that a court could understand for example... Unity in diversity - including economic diversity.

Ale

ale fernandez