squatting | Novara Media

Tag: squatting

riot police patrol through the street while a local resident watches from their front garden

Feature: Did Riot Police Illegally Evict a Homeless Shelter?

Rivkah Brown

Earlier this month, around 100 riot cops descended on a homeless shelter in east London. The police insist everything was above board. Evidence suggests otherwise. Rivkah Brown reports.

A building with a redbrick facade, shuttered ground floor windows and a white stone Mary affixed to it is covered almost entirely with a banner made of old clothes sewn together

Report: These Nuns Helped the Homeless Until They Showed Up On Their Doorstep

Rivkah Brown

When squatters set up a homeless shelter in a disused convent, they thought the nuns – whose religious order prides itself on helping the homeless – might show mercy. They called the police. Rivkah Brown reports.

Eli Bitan, a man in a vest

Report: A Bailiff Was Arrested for a Firearms Offence After a ‘Brutal’ Attempt to Illegally Evict Squatters

Charlotte England

Bailiffs with illegal weapons tried to evict squatters from a former Tory councillor’s empty factory. Cops arrested a bailiff and let squatters back in again.

Opinion: No Job, No Rent: I Was a Full-Time Militant in the Nineties

Seth Wheeler

The 1990s saw an explosion in self-organised, militant anti-capitalist activity. This was made possible by squatting and the dole - without which the left has been fundamentally changed.

a group of men with dark skin, a variety of darkly coloured clothing pose together for a picture

Feature: Where Are the Shadwell Fire Survivors Supposed to Go?

Rivkah Brown

Two months after their state-sanctioned slum burned down, killing one of their housemates, six of the Tower Hamlets fire survivors remain homeless. Rivkah Brown reports.

Report: Activists Have Occupied an Abandoned High Security Police Station

Harriet Williamson

Activists have occupied the abandoned high security police station at Paddington Green, London. The successful occupation, which started on 7 February, has ambitions for creating a lasting impact in the local community. Harriet Williamson reports.

Novara Docs: Return to the Commons

On a 14-square mile patch of western France known as Notre-Dame-des-Landes, a world is being constructed, a way of living, formed through common endeavour and a knowledge of and sensitivity to the landscape and its ecosystems. It’s a messy process that was started 10 years ago when climate activists started to squat the area to […]

Streets Kitchen

The Sofia Solidarity Centre Squat Exposed a Housing Crisis Past Breaking Point

Matt Broomfield

Opened on Great Portland Street as London temperatures dropped to minus ten, the Sofia Solidarity Centre squat housed close to two hundred rough sleepers by the time it was evicted. In addition to providing shelter to some of the city's most vulnerable people, the Centre served as a vigorous embodiment of the housing crisis and showed just how easy it could be to get people off the streets.

A Network of Liberated Spaces: Visiting Barcelona’s Squats

Tomás Lynch (Words) and Georgia Lalor (Photos)

Amidst the ongoing political stalemate in Spain, Catalonia's squatters are trying to carve out different ways of living together. Tomás Lynch visited to talk about 15M, Catalan independence, escapism and solidarity.

London Housing Crisis: Squatting Becomes More Precarious, While Guardianships Boom

Housing Action Southwark & Lambeth

As more people struggle to keep up with rising rents, squatting continues to be criminalised while London councils are turning towards the promotion of insecure property guardianships.

Long Read: Rebel City: Dublin 1916-2016

Tomas Lynch

Sunday Long Read: Remembering the Easter Rising should be done with the social context in mind, particularly if we want to draw inspiration to create positive change in cities today.

Long Read: Can Masdeu: A Catalan Eco-Community Showing the Potential of Degrowth

Steve Rushton

Sunday Long Read: Outside the rat race of Barcelona, a squatted hospital shows how a politics of degrowth could show the way to collective and sustainable living.

6 Reasons to Support Your Local Squats

Izzy Koksal and Luke Sheldon

Negative changes in attitudes and the law combined with the gentrification of inner-city areas mean squatting is becoming much harder - precisely at a time when immediate housing is so desperately needed.

5 Things C4’s ‘Crashing’ Tells Us about Property Guardians and the Housing Crisis

Gloria Dawson

Channel 4’s comedy series Crashing is halfway through and the laughs are a bit sparse. Nevertheless, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s series breaks new territory by being the first fictional representation of property guardianship on our screens.

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