Squatting Rights and Wrongs

Guest blog by Damien Colman

In Spring 2003, in the picturesque city of York, I became a squatter. Whilst I had participated in numerous politically motivated squats previously, my decision was one of necessity – having become homeless through no fault of my own, it was that or the street. I’d been working as a Stage Hand at York Barbican and on the switchboard for BT, trying to save enough cash for a bond on a flat. My situation wasn’t typical other than that it was typically human.

I’d had to leave my rented accommodation and spent six weeks sleeping on the sofa of a friend. The peculiar tension which develops when you occupy someone else’s living space had reached breaking point, and I’d spent an increasing number of nights in my tent up at Fulford Ings as part of the Peace Camp. There were half a dozen of us in a similar predicament, basically living in tents, protected by the veneer of political activity. But tents offered no protection against predatory attacks by various thugs and, after a string of serious incidents, the decision to move into a building was taken.

Our chosen home was the White Swan Hotel on Coppergate. Derelict for twenty two years and the centre of a campaign by the York Evening Press to have the building returned to use, we moved in and immediately began renovating the space, clearing between 2-3 inches of compacted dirt from each and every room of the gutted, five floor building. By gutted, I mean, every single fitting had been systematically stripped from the building’s interior – it was patently obvious that the owners had no intention of ever letting the building be restored to human use. They’d knocked holes in the roof to accelerate the speed of dereliction. There was a tree growing through the roof. You would hear an occasional crash as window panes simply fell out of their frames, the result of 22 years of wilful neglect and rot.

And in 22 years no one had been able to even identify the mysterious owners. They revealed themselves within one week of our taking occupation of the building after we posted a Section 6 on the window, which declared that we were the legal occupants of said property – I had to explain to York Constabulary, after they’d smashed said window and “raided” the Hotel, that they were in fact breaking the law, for which they duly apologised and left.

So we cracked on, fixed the smashed window, cleaned and renovated the building, all 45 rooms of it, running cables to the top floors from the first floor and bringing our own water in – there was no running water – my daily routine broght 10 gallons on the back of my bike which was used for cleaning, cooking, flushing the toilet, etc. We found that painting the floor boards locked down the remaining grime and made it easier to maintain the building, and quickly the stripes and patterns adorning the Hotel leant an exotic and vibrant hue which quickly routed any lingering shadows. Meanwhile the windows portrayed CND signs, doves, and an advert for BMW, whilst the shop frontages played host to various September 11 Conspiracy files printed down from the then still relatively novel Internet.

And we renamed the building the Peace Hotel. And the York Evening Press got right behind us, running weekly stories, features and interviews. And we received good will from York’s residents, who donated furniture, food, computers and support – too long had this building stood empty, a blot on the landscape. And we gave public tours of the building – many a local resident had their own recollections of the Hotel, the nightclub, and so on. And many a Quaker and liberal attended our meetings as the country continued to demonstrate against the Iraq War (we organised a Critical Mass bike ride, attended a demo at Menwith Hill, helped close down several of York’s bridges, and threw blossom out of the windows on May Day.)

And in the eight months of holding this and two further squats, despite the court summonses and evictions, the attempted entry by every heroin pusher in the district, raids by wholly fearless, intoxicated and psychotic gangs of parent sanctioned youths from Clifton, just the general organized chaos of keeping the thing going, we provided a genuine haven. Two dozen homeless people were able to take refuge (and inspiration) from our endeavour. Many more of York’s excluded and marginalised community were able to come together under our roof, including most of Bootham’s mental health unit’s outpatients. And buildings otherwise consigned to ruin enjoyed a last twilight before they were either boarded up or bulldozed.

On Saturday 1st September 2012 these activities became criminalised, and thousands of people across the country, desperate and vulnerable people, were squeezed that little bit harder by a Government which has so far failed to jail one single banker. Yup, whilst we watch the country’s richest continue to “live it up” clearly untouchable by the law, who do we hit? The homeless. “It was them what done the recession, guv!”

Here’s my prophecy – this will be an incentive to Direct Actionistas throughout the land to squat derelict buildings and to challenge a law which would never have been needed if the country got its own house in order. It will be a hugely visible, symbolic, and emotive opportunity to demonstrate once again what our towns and cities were designed to do – that is, provide function and security to human beings, not real estate ghettoes for hedge fund investors.

This will be the Coalition’s Poll Tax. Once more unto the barricades, eh?