We are in the midst of a housing crisis in which rents are increasing, people are struggling to get mortgages and housing benefit is being slashed. This is gonna have a big knock-on effect on homelessness. Meanwhile, 870,000 homes lie empty and there’s enough empty commercial property to create 420,000 new homes. Far from being a social menace - squatting is a positive short-term solution to homelessness, requiring initiative and responsibility. It’s free of government cost and management. To make it illegal right now is both stupid and inhumane could at best be described as foolish, at worst inhumane.

The Tory proposals, whatever concrete form they take in law, will cost a packet to enforce. If you’er kicked out of your squat repeatedly then unless yer a real die-hard then you’re probably gonna end up on housing benefit. If even half of the government’s conservative estimate of 20,000 squatters were receiving benefits for housing, the cost would be around £50 million a year. The policing and court costs that would result from a change in the law (involving general enforcement, evictions, prosecutions and human rights cases) would also hit the taxpayer in the pocket. Squatters currently cost the taxpayer nothing.

Yer ever suspicious SchNEWS detects an ulterior motive behind the government’s plans, above and beyond protecting Mr&Mrs Semi-deatched while they’re in the Algarve for a fortnight? The law already provides virtually instant eviction for squatters daft enough to crack a family home - this is provided by clauses allowing ‘displaced residential occupiers’ and ‘protected intending occupiers’ to force entry if their homes are occupied.

The new laws are of course designed to protect the commercial sector - and would of course have the effect of criminalising all protest camps. It seems that certain sections of the Conservative government are either blind or uncaring as to the harm that this pandering to business and property-owners will cause to the vulnerable in our society. Squatters won’t be the only ones directly affected - SchNEWS gives it 24 hours after the law goes through before some dodgy landlord is using it to force through an illegal eviction with police assistance.

* For more info, see the SQUASH campaign’s parliamentary briefing- www.squashcampaign.org/resources

** To get involved in the struggle against the Tory anti-squatting agenda, check out the next Squattastic - info available from their blog, http://squattastic.blogspot.com

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