Living Free

Credit: Squatter's Arrest by Photochiel on flickr

There’s a man learning French in the corner, mimicking the rudimentary commands of his native-speaking companion. “Assis-toi! Restez!” he barks. He’s learning because his Parisian teacher is returning home for a short holiday, and he’s offered to look after her francophone dog in her absence. “Assis! Restez!… What’s French for: ‘off the couch’?”

I’m watching all this happen in the kitchen of an East London squat, home to 18 people of various nationalities and notions. Outside, in the garden, a mixed group sip beer and bicker over political theorists I’ve never heard of. Above me, sunbathing on the flat roof, I can hear an equally bickersome Lithuanian couple debating whose turn it is to cook dinner. None of these people have any legal right to reside here, though most have called this place home for almost a year now.

The room is garage-sized, but cosy with conversation, opening onto a garden that stretches back through a handful of ripening apple trees. My host, David, is busy in a kitchen equipped for twelve, washing vegetables which he hands me to chop or grate. While he points out objects and their personal odysseys (that chair, a skip nearby, this table, made by an old housemate, the carrots, Sainsburys), I take in the surroundings. Behind me, a baby – just visiting – dozes peacefully in his buggy, while several cats and dogs – house pets – pad around our legs and the mismatched furniture, sniffing for attention. When the baby occasionally stirs, everyone, including the dog, cranes their necks to coo and ssh.

Squatting a property is not illegal in England and Wales in the strictest sense. What is illegal is breaking and entering, though long-abandoned buildings often come replete with easy-access points already carved out by vandals or the passage of time. If the interior is accessible without doing criminal damage, then it is technically legal to squat.

The practice is considered a civil offence though, i.e. a dispute between two parties, rather than an assault on society or the state. For the owners who suddenly find their property with unwelcome guests, a court order made within four weeks of discovery can effectively break up the squat. Though it is a drawn out and expensive process, it is not one which tends to favour or even hear out the squatters. This is why…

“I’m speaking for everyone in the house, when I say we don’t want to be named or photographed, or have the location of the squat made apparent.”

It’s the morning of my day at the squat and I’ve met with David in a nearby cemetery, to be vetted and briefed. He’s in his mid twenties, compact in build, with strong, smiley features that contrast the crumbling, softened-rock faces of the mausoleum statues.

Everything about him is neat, minimal, deliberate; from his clothes to the size of his piercings. He seems rarely to speak without thinking.

But his name, his real name, isn’t David.

We eat ice cream and talk over the history of squatting. He’s well-versed, taking me from the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, to the True Levellers in 1649, when Gerard Winstanley led the way in occupying common land and claiming it by right. But it was only after the Second World War, in a London caved in by the Blitz, that squatting properly flourished as a necessary means of survival for destitute families.

David’s own history comes out as well; he’s recently returned to London after the end of a relationship, to find a cautious jobs market unimpressed with his university degree in industrial design. With no money for a deposit, the decision to move into a squat came easily.

“At the end of the day it’s somewhere to live, and it’s a necessity.” David tells me. “Coming to London, I saw the experiences my friends had looking for housing, and the rent they were being asked to pay. I can’t manage that right now. I’m on benefits and the industry where I want to work is so closed I can’t even get an unpaid internship. I can’t get my foot in the door, I don’t have savings, and I can’t get a deposit.”

“The politics of squatting is attractive to me as well. I would think of myself as anti-capitalist, and this is a way for me to make a statement with the way I’m living. Property is capital, basically, so squatting is a protest against that.”

But as well there’s the chance to have that kind of communal living. It’s hard to find that, or to get the chance to see people in that environment. How they work together in groups, to make something good, or cooperate for everyone’s benefit, I find it fascinating.”

As we walk through east London towards his home, David starts to point out properties which he suspects are disused, or currently being squatted. The number of places, when strung together like this, is surprising, and I later discover that there are over 700,000 empty properties in the UK. Many are second homes, or nest egg properties that lie empty for years. Many belong to big businesses with huge portfolios, and have simply fallen off the books of their owners as the years went by.

For David and many like him, it’s a waste of space that could be put to better use for local communities, or helping to solve problems of homelessness.

Rounding a corner we’ve suddenly arrived, and I’m ushered in the basement door of a Victorian townhouse, down a long dark corridor into the rear of the house, where sunlight spills through bay windows into the main common area of the house.

Several heads turn to stare, and my mind goes blank of all the witty trust-winning introductions I had assured myself would sprout lyrically at this crucial moment.

I’m reduced to being myself, a risky tactic in the best situation, not least the prospect of meeting 18 perfect strangers – ostensibly, radically different from you – who aren’t even too keen on you knowing their real names.

Credit: Dancetrax on flickr

I needn’t have worried; the welcome is warm. People take time in introducing themselves, but nothing seems forced or false. Not everyone knows my reasons for being here, I’m simply ‘David’s friend’.

I’m given the grand tour and the squat isn’t what I expected. There’s art on the walls, almost everywhere, but no graffiti. There are three showers, I’m informed, but only one has hot water, a problem they’re working on. There are good sized rooms, all secured with personal locks. In the bathroom, I find stacks of Socialist Standard where some of my friends keep the Sunday Times Style. Directly opposite the toilet, there’s a poster about the Rossport protest in the west of Ireland (I’ll have time to engage with the fine details later).

The building’s previous incarnation was as a halfway house, and is expansive but clean, with all mod cons as well as the electricity and running water to power them. These amenities are fully paid for by the residents; bills arrive in a stranger’s name, and they pay them at the post office. The final nail in my own preconceptions comes when David sees me fiddling with my phone, and offers me the password for the house Wi-Fi.

“Generally the places you move into are fucking tips,” David says, “so it takes a lot of work to get these places up to liveable. They’re left to rot, or else the owners or the council rip up the plumbing and break the toilets so squatters can’t move in. There were builders from next door in today, saying that their site is flooding from a leak in our foundations. We don’t have a landlord obviously, so it’s going to be up to us to get that sorted.”

I admit to David that I wasn’t really sure what to expect, and he doesn’t seem surprised.

“People do have a lot of preconceptions, but it’s the same with any type of dwelling. You have lots of different types of people. Some can be drug addicts, some can be alcoholics, some like to party and piss off their neighbours. It’s the same with squatting, but it’s not necessarily representative.”

I ask how people react to his living situation.

“I generally don’t tell people, because of those preconceived ideas. My friends know, my family know, but for strangers it can turn them off. They think you’re a scrounger or a drug addict. I know it’s important to challenge those preconceptions, but I’m looking for work right now, so it’s a risk.”

“That said, we did joke the other night about being out on the pull, and leaning in at the end of the night; “D’ya wanna come back to my squat?”

Preconceptions about squatters as freeloaders or scroungers may have been reinforced by recent media coverage; in particular reported instances where people returned from holidays to find their high-priced homes had been squatted while they were away. The high profile takeover of several central London addresses (including Guy Ritchie’s) by the Really Free School sent the coverage stratospheric, leading Justice Secretary Ken Clarke to call for the slack in English property law to be tightened up, effectively criminalising squatting.

It’s not the first time that the Conservative party have made a concerted effort to eradicate the practice, though they failed in both the 1970s and again in the 90s.

This time around, the Tory proposals face a fresh challenge from SQUASH (Squatters’ Action For Secure Homes), an initiative set up following Secretary Clarke’s comments, with the support of Crisis UK and the Empty Homes Agency.

The campaign believes that not only would the plans criminalise the homeless and vulnerable, but also that the current housing crisis would exacerbate those effects to an egregious level. The UK is suffering a slump in house building, which is currently at it’s lowest in 90 years, while simultaneously, repossessions are on the up. Bailiffs are reporting an annual rise of 12% in 2010, for evictions due to rent arrears.

In fact, 10% of all rents due in the UK are either late or unpaid. Yet over the past year rents in London have risen 7.3%, and are now reaching an average of £1000 per month. This is despite well-publicised evidence of falling incomes and limited employment prospects for young people.

The proposed cuts to housing benefit is likely to be a tipping point in this growing crisis. SQUASH estimate that 88,000 households will be badly affected, with areas of London becoming simply unaffordable for low-income households. A modern day exodus could become a reality, as families are forced from the areas they have long called home.

Young single people of 25-35 face a double bind, as they will no longer be able to avail of one-bed allowances for housing benefit. There has been a 25% fall in house and apartment prices since 2008, but realistically these properties are still well beyond the reach of anyone in this age bracket, not least because they are unlikely to have the typical £25,000 deposit required in this new era of risk-free loaning.

As Campbell Robb, the Chief Executive of Shelter has pointed out: “Where these cuts take place they will pull away the safety net from some of the most vulnerable families and individuals in our society and will inevitably lead to an increase in homelessness.”

Squash believes that the criminalisation of squatting would take the last option away from those affected by the cuts, and perversely, further the justice system, police and public purse.

That evening I’m talking with Ciaran, an Irish actor who was one of the founding members of the squat.

Credit: isafrancesca on flickr

I’m swinging in a hammock while he reclines on a trampoline, beside us a scarecrow, draped in tinfoil and a blond wig, watches over the house vegetable patch. In my head, I’m already typing the words ‘Wurzel Gaga’.

“We opened this place almost a year ago, and we’ve been pretty lucky. You don’t always get a place that keeps going that long, touch wood.” He overstretches trying to reach the nearest apple tree and falls off the trampoline with a clatter.

Recomposed, he admits: “The worst part is not knowing if you’ll wake up in the morning and find papers on the mat, saying you have eight weeks to get out.”

David echoes the sentiment, but points out other drawbacks too. “In a place this big, you’re bound to get people butting heads, you expect that. But sometimes you have people who have a very ill-formed concept of how they’re living, and what squatting can be about. I just think some people don’t really think about it too much, and just focus on what they’re gaining. They’re not interested in giving anything back.”

When I raise this with Ciaran he admits that mistakes can get made, especially in the early days of deciding who moves in. It’s by no means a free for all, A house meeting the night before had been held to discuss problems within the household, from new housemates to people not cleaning up after themselves in the kitchen.

The newly drafted house rules are stuck on the wall:

No guests to stay beyond two weeks

Potential new housemates to be introduced to everyone and decided upon as a group

Everyone contributes to food budget for sugar and salt

It’s oddly normalising, that the bohemian underbelly of East London has a kitty for sugar and bitches to each other about who hasn’t been doing the washing up. A hot topic of the meeting was how to reach out to the local community.. David explains: “Working with your neighbours enriches the experience of squatting, but it can also help if the authorities try to move you on. Having the community on your side is a huge help.”

In a North London squat, David’s friends work closely with the charity Foodcycle. Collecting edible but unsaleable food from local supermarkets, they get the use of a local community kitchen, and offer free meals for families one night a week.

“If you’re on a budget with five kids to feed, having one night where dinner is taken care of can be a great help.” he observes, “but you can also help to educate people about nutrition. Show them affordable ways of eating healthily without relying on cheap frozen stuff.”

It’s something he’d like to start in his new squat, as well as free workshops and lessons for the neighbourhood, from the various actors, dancers and painters he lives with.

As we talk late into the night, I’m struck by the potential for good that a squat can hold. But with so much transience, and the necessity to often keep a low profile, it can be difficult to get organised. Criminalising squatting would stop such potential at the source, as well as putting more people on the streets that may already have nowhere else to turn.

All day, people come and go, to jobs and lives outside. When they return, sometimes they have brought new people with them, a potential housemate, or a homeless person they’ve met who they can offer a meal and a good night’s sleep. How much, I ask David, can this really feel like home?

“You have to make it your home. A home is a lot to do with the people, and creating that sense of home. You want it to be a nice place to come back to, to chill out.”

“I’ve been out all weekend looking for a job, while most people in London have been drinking away the bank holiday. To no avail. I’ve two pennies to rub together, but living in a squat, people understand that position. I’ve eaten today, and eaten well, and that’s because of these people.”

Advertisement