For Monday morning: Sweets Way occupiers in court to fight evictions

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Kate B

From the Sweets Way campaign: support tomorrow morning if you can: Monday, March 23, 2015, 09:30, Barnet County Court – St Marys Court, Regents Park Rd, London N3 1BQ

Two weeks into a political occupation that has expanded from one to six homes on the Sweets Way Estate in Barnet, occupiers and residents will be going to court to challenge the replacement of perfectly good and truly affordable homes, with yet more luxury new builds.

Following the delivery of court papers, late in the afternoon on Thursday, March 19, residents, ex-residents and supporters of the Sweets Way Resists campaign will be going to Barnet County Court against private property developers Annington Homes on Monday, 23 March, at 10:00am. The campaign aims to challenge the legal processes used by Annington against the estate’s remaining residents, as well as those involved in the political occupation of 60 Sweets Way, during the company’s attempts to bulldoze the estate.

Supporters and families will also be gathering outside of the courts to stand in solidarity with those fighting the social cleansing of Sweets Way on the inside. Families and activists will be available to share their stories with the media. Continue reading →

“Why should I pay for other people’s kids?” Because that’s real social security. Stop whining.

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Kate B

A few thoughts on the modern world’s fear and loathing of single mothers:

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see a woman who we’ll call Becky. She was in her early thirties. She and her six children (aged seven and under) were living in a one-bedroom flat in a temporary accommodation hostel in South East London. The whole family (the family included an 18-month-old baby) slept in that one bedroom. You can see the beds and bunks in the photos below. The kitchen was tiny. There was just enough space for two adults to fit into it if neither of them moved around very much. Cockroaches rattled across the floor. Becky had plugged holes in the walls with foam to stop the cockroaches from getting into the flat and into the baby’s cot:

Apparently, Becky’s local council had told her the family might have to stay in the one-bedroom hostel flat for months. Big houses for large families were in short supply. Becky had 11 children altogether, but the eldest ones had been removed from her care and adopted into other families (Becky said that the council adopted out her white children. The six children she still had living with her were mixed race). One of her older sons lived with her sister. So, Becky was living in this one-bedroom hostel flat with her six youngest children. Her school-aged kids had to sit on the bunk-beds to do their homework while the littler ones raced around the room. This overcrowding was yielding exactly the results that you’d expect. Becky showed me a health visitor’s letter which said that her kids were falling badly behind in their milestones, at least in part because of their living conditions. That in itself is reason enough to find and finance decent accommodation for this family. Every kid deserves a chance.

Anyway. I’ve thought a lot about Becky and her kids in the couple of weeks since I saw them. Mainly, I’ve thought about the shit that hits the fan whenever somebody writes about mothers who ask for state support. We all know how this one goes in our punitive age (read a few of the comments under this story if you don’t). Why, people will ask, did Becky have these children if she couldn’t afford to look after them? Where are the fathers? Why should this woman and her children be found a decent home? Why should taxpayers pick up the tab?

And on it goes. For myself, I have to say that I find this sort of dismissal – this slamming of doors, particularly in children’s faces – harder to handle as time goes on. It solves nothing and helps nobody. You find in it one of our era’s most poisonous political ideas: that you can sort a situation out simply by insisting it should never have come to pass. As it happens, there are – as there usually are – many reasons for complex situations: ill health, mental health, domestic violence, manipulation and a host of other forces that are beyond my perception and grasp. I don’t need to know the details and neither do you. Knowing the details doesn’t change the facts. Either everyone is entitled to basics like housing, or nobody is. That is social security. All that matters is the need at the hour of need.

“Worried about my 10-year-old daughter being safe in a B&B.” More homelessness stories from Newham

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Kate B

An update on this story: Candice, one of the homeless women I’ve been talking with in Newham and who is quoted below, was offered a place in Canning Town by Newham council today. Yesterday, she was told that she’d be sent out of London to live in Liverpool and that her case would be closed if she didn’t accept a place there. That would have been very difficult for her, because her family live in Newham and help her look after her 17-month-old daughter as you’ll see. Anyway, things seemed to change today when Candice went back to the housing office with a few people from the Focus E15 campaign. Canning Town it is.

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Yesterday, I spent several hours at the Newham council housing office at Bridge house with a number of women who are homeless.

Two things were noticeable right off: 1) that by the time I arrived at Bridge house at about 11, the waiting room was already full of people who had housing problems and 2) there were a lot of kids in the room. Some of the children were very young: in prams, or pushchairs. Some of the children were schoolage, though. I hadn’t thought about this aspect of things before – that instead of going to school on Monday morning, some kids go to council housing offices and wait while their parents try to sort out emergency housing. That’s surely got to put kids at a disadvantage as far as their schooling goes. I pretty sure there wasn’t a school holiday in Newham yesterday. I certainly asked around.

So. Below are a few interview excerpts which will tell you a bit about life for people who spend a lot of their time at housing offices asking for help because they don’t have a secure place to live.

One of the women with a child at the housing office yesterday was Charice Thompson. Charice said that she had been in the housing office with her ten-year-old daughter since about 9am. She had her belongings and extra clothes in bags with her. She had a plastic clothes rack with her as well – that was leaning against the back wall in the housing office. Charice said she’d been evicted from the revolting flat she’d been living in for three years for complaining about the standards in the place. She said that the flat had no hot water a lot of the time and that it was so badly infested with bedbugs that she’d ended up with a blood infection from the bites. She was clutching a letter from MP Stephen Timms which asked the council to house her and outlined her health problems. (I rang Timms’ office while Charice was waiting to see a housing officer, because she was concerned that she wouldn’t get to see someone and she and her daughter had nowhere to go last night. Someone from his office did ring me back yesterday afternoon). Charice and her daughter were given an emergency room in a hostel in Ilford at a charge of £196 a week. Her housing benefit would cover a lot of that, but she would still have to meet some costs. Continue reading →

Learning and literacy difficulties, no computer – but must do jobsearch online with no help

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Kate B

Video and report from today: #FocusE15 mothers reopen boarded-up Carpenters’ estate flats

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Kate B

Update 27 September:

Big day yesterday. To begin with, the council turned up at the Carpenter’s estate to turn off the water at the occupied flats. Jasmin Stone told me that she was sworn at when she asked why people were there to cut the water:

“We just asked them what was happening and the response we got was “don’t fucking record me or I’ll smash your camera on the floor.”

I’d ask the council for a comment on that, except that the council has refused to talk to me since the start of this year. Suffice to say for now that those of us who’ve spent time with this campaign have come to expect aggression and a not-so-latent misogyny from those who oppose it. There has been something nasty and unnecessarily confrontational about the council response from the start. I’ve often wondered why the council and its PR advisers didn’t make a better attempt to work with the women, at least at various junctures in their campaign. It would have been smart, for instance, for a councillor or two to have accompanied the women when they took a petition for social housing to Boris Johnson earlier this year. There have been chances like that which a Labour council might just have taken.

That hasn’t happened and it’s hard not to conclude that the council made a mistake by not opening things up for discussion, rather than trying to close them down. The women told me months ago that Robin Wales told them he was annoyed at their campaign. I saw that fury again earlier this year (here on video) when the council rushed from a council meeting to avoid the women and again when Wales rushed from me to avoid questions about his attendance at a property fair in Cannes. The upshot of all this is that the council now has a problem. People all over the country are watching this campaign and responding with enthusiasm. As Jasmin told me yesterday – people starting donating bottles of water as soon as news of the water being cut started to circulate on social media. I noticed a man distributing further bottles of water outside the court yesterday, too. As I said yesterday on twitter, I’m starting to get the feeling that half of Newham has been waiting for the chance to subvert Newham council. Chickens do come home to roost. I’ve spoken to residents on the Carpenter’s estate, as you can read below, and noted their enthusiasm for the campaign. They are not securely housed themselves.

As for the council’s botched attempt to fast-track an eviction yesterday – well, we all know what happened there. I spoke to Ravi Naik, one of the attending lawyers, who said:

“We were only instructed about an hour before the hearing so I had to rush to get there.

“The Council had made an application for an interim possession order – which means asking for possession of the building which would have had the effect of ending the protest. For this to be lawful, they have to give three days’ notice to the group. Obviously, the group would want to have that time to consider the position and properly defend themselves. The council wanted to shorten that time period to two hours – that’s from three days to two hours. This would have undermined any hope of legal representation.

We made the point to the judge that we’ve got all these complex legal arguments, but we haven’t had any chance to consider them with the group or look at the Council’s evidence; we only met the clients about an hour before. We didn’t have any chance to consider this with the group. The judge agreed with our position. In the rules governing civil procedure, the key rule is the Overriding Objective. This means that cases must be considered justly and fairly. The judge said that there was no chance that this case could be considered justly and fairly in the circumstances. I don’t think they expected the group to put together a legal team so quickly.”

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Update 23 September: more perfectly serviceable flats on the Carpenters’ estate:

This is a video I took a couple of weeks ago of another of the flats in the Carpenters’ estate tower block. The film is a little jumpy as I couldn’t see what I was doing – had to stick my hand with the phone camera under one of the metal security doors to film this. I believe this is one of the flats used by the media during the Olympics. Would ask the council about this to confirm, except that the council refuses to talk to me. Boo. Anyway – again, you can see these are of a good standard. There’s a video of another of these flats at the end of this post.

Another update: September 23 2014 – the many people in Newham who are struggling for housing:

Every week at their Saturday stall on the Stratford Broadway, the Focus E15 mothers have asked local people to write their own housing stories on sheets that the women taped to the pavement.

The Focus E5 women have collected all sorts of stories about people’s housing problems this way. It’s been interesting to see. There are a lot of sheets and a lot of stories. This is one of the reasons why the Focus E15 campaign for housing is so significant – and the reason that Newham Labour can’t ignore the campaign, even though it is trying very hard to right now, as the women continue their occupation of the Carpenters’ estate. A great many people have housing problems – they’re stuck in B&Bs, or temporary housing, or in the private sector where they can barely afford the rent. Those people and those problems won’t go away, even if Newham council does ultimately decide to drag the Focus E15 women out of the flats they are occupying. (Mayor Robin Wales is speaking at a Labour party fringe meeting on winning back “left behind” voters tonight, which is hilarious. When you read the comments on the sheets, you get the feeling he’s left quite a few voters behind).

You can see some of the comments people have written on the sheets in the pictures below (click on the images for a bigger pic):

“Single mum in B&B – for three years with my children.”

“Private landlord threw all my daughter’s clothes and furniture in a skip.”

“The council sent me to temporary accommodation in Barking. It was so disgusting with mice running around. I was there with my children for two years. The council did not listen to us. My children had to travel far every day back to Newham.”

“I live in a house with 10 people and only one toilet. I pay £500pm.”

On it goes.

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Update to beat all updates September 23 2014 (h-t Clifford Singer): Can Robin Wales – mayor of a borough where young homeless women who’ve been fighting him for housing all year are occupying abandoned flats – REALLY be speaking tonight at a Labour party conference fringe on “bringing insights on community organising and movement building?” What – is he going to talk about the Focus E15 campaign that has wrongfooted him at every turn? Will he show this video – the one where he spat the dummy at one of the Focus E15 mothers (an action for which he now finds himself the subject of an official complaint)? Don’t often say this sort of thing – but that’s a Labour party fringe event I wouldn’t mind attending.

Update September 22: were these abandoned flats originally adapted and made accessible?

I went back to the Carpenters’ estate this morning. On the ground floor of the building that the Focus E15 mothers have moved into, I found these abandoned flats. They have been left to rot. One of them looked like an accessible flat to me – it had ground floor access with an adapted wet-room bathroom. There’s such a shortage of accessible flats in London. Leaving an adapted place to decay does seem criminal. Pretty sure you can still see a bottle on the floor.

I also talked to several of the other estate residents this time – people who’ve been living at the estate for a while. A few residents visited the Focus E15 mothers in their reopened and occupied flats last night. There’s concern among residents about being identified and targeted by the council – but not about the occupation itself, it seems, at least among the people I spoke with. I spoke to four people and they seemed sympathetic to the Focus E15 fight for homes. That surprised me and didn’t surprise me. Not everyone likes an occupation, or a confrontation with council, but a lot of people can relate to a battle for housing.

Said one of the women I spoke to (she’s lived on the Carpenters’ estate for nearly 20 years):

“They [the Focus E15 mothers] should stay. We don’t mind them here at all. They have to stay longer to make it work, though. Tell them don’t do it for a couple of days and then go. Keep it going. I haven’t got a problem with them putting young mums there. Young mums got to have a place.

“I been here for nearly 20 years. It used to be lovely, with all the kids running round on that grass. But then, people moved out and they didn’t move anyone in. That’s all boarded up there. See, I will show you this place here [she walked me up a small path to another home which was sealed with a metal security door]. That has been closed up now for five years. But you don’t want to say anything. You don’t know now how long your tenancy is going to last now. It never used to be like that. It’s in the last few years.

“That’s a housing officer walking around here (she pointed out a woman walking around with papers and a small bag).

“You’ve not got a problem with that [occupation and banners], have you?” she said to another woman who emerged from her flat then.

“Nah,” the second woman said. “It’s for the right reasons. They’re doing it for the right reasons. People do need homes. The council say they haven’t got any homes, but they have.”

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Original post:

Back to Newham today – where the women of the Focus E15 mothers’ social housing campaign took the admirable step of reopening some of the long-boarded-up flats on the Carpenters’ estate. I hope news of this move has reached those Labour councillors and MPs who are all tucked up nice and warm at conference in Manchester.

Video: entering the flats and being welcomed by the Focus E15 campaigners:

The Focus E15 mothers have been fighting for social housing for a year. Newham council was planning to send them out of London to live, but pulled back from that idea when the women complained and campaigned. The women were placed in private tenancies for a year – but those tenancies will end soon. That will leave the women again with nowhere to live. Meanwhile, the Carpenters’ estate sits, partially abandoned and empty, next to Stratford station, with boarded-up flats all over. Newham council’s housing waiting list is 24,000. The women decided that flats shouldn’t be shut off when so many people are homeless, or struggling to find a decent place to live. This is a borough which likes to slap Asbo warnings on rough sleepers let’s not forget. So, the women arranged for a block on the Carpenters’ estate to be opened. They plan to stay for at least a couple of weeks.

And look at the flats they found inside the estate. I was a little shocked and surprised myself when I saw the flats. They looked pretty good. They certainly looked perfectly serviceable. I’d happily move into one myself. They’re carpeted, clean and the second one in particular looked as though it had a new kitchen. How can it be that Stratford’s homeless people are left to sleep in the Stratford centre, or run out of town entirely, when these places exist right next to Stratford station? How can it be that young women are told there’s no room for them and their children in Newham? I’ve asked the council about its plans for the estate – but no answer, alas. That council refuses to talk to me.

There will be mealy-mouthed statements about safety, planning, new builds and homes for all from the council, but the truth is that there is no justification for empty homes when so many people are homeless. It really is as simple as that. When it comes down to it, who’d rather live outside in winter than inside one of these places? The women are right to raise this issue and to force this issue.

Here’s Focus E15 Mother Sam Middleton explaining why she decided to take part in this operation and why she’ll stay in the Carpenters’ estate for a while.

“We know that if there’s the Carpenters’ estate then there’s loads of other estates out there like this. We thought – do you know what? There’s too many boardedup places and they need people to live in. If you look around today, you can see that the flats are liveable. So why not get families in and do what’s right?”

Indeed.

An unmarked car full of coppers began circling at about 5pm. I went over to ask them if they planned to “do” anything. “We’re just keeping an eye on things,” they told me. “Who are you?” Then, they asked me what “they” (the people who were occupying the flat) had inside the flats. I told them that the occupiers had found a bunch of nice flats that should be lived in. As they have.

I also spoke to one of the Carpenters’ estate residents. He wanted to go inside the reopened flats to see how the flats looked. He said he was worried about getting into trouble with the council, though, and so decided against going in.

Inside the flats: sitting room

Kitchen:

Bathroom:

This is a video I took several weeks ago inside the tower block at the estate. It’s jumpy, because I had to shove my phone under the boarded-up door of the empty flat I filmed here to get pictures. You can see that the flat is in pretty good condition, though. It’s empty, though.

This Sunday – #FocusE15 birthday celebration following by a top secret housing action…

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Kate B

The Focus E15 campaign invites you to join a day of fun and music on the almost-empty Carpenters Estate in Stratford….

I’m going to post some photos we took recently of parts of that empty estate. It’s disgusting that the estate lies empty when so many people desperately need homes.

Later in the afternoon on Sunday, partygoers will become activists as they will be led to a top secret housing action in the Newham area…

Join the women as they continue to fight for social housing for all.

Meet at:

Sunday 2pm
Carpenters Estate, Stratford, London, E15

Will post more on this soon. Wifi is a bit average where I am atm. Here’s a video to enjoy in the meantime, though – Newham Mayor Robin Wales running away from the Focus E15 women as they lobbied for social housing at a council meeting. I really like this video. That man is not good under pressure. Look at him run.

Newham council to me: you are foul mouthed and aggressive. #Result. A #FocusE15 update

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Kate B

To Stratford again! where career mayor Robin Wales continues one of London’s leading Pillock of the Year campaigns…here he is at the recent Newham Mayor’s show running from the Focus E15 mothers and their kids when the mothers asked him again about social housing in the borough.

Video from the Focus E15 mothers:

“This [event] is a family day!” Wales barked at the mothers as they walked around the event with their – err, families. I wonder if I should even bother outlining the ironies in that one. I guess we can take it that when Wales says “families,” he means “families who are not campaigning for social housing for families.” For nearly a year now, the Focus E15 mums have been fighting for secure social housing for everyone who needs it, which is most people. The women want decent, secure social housing for all – places where people can settle for the long term and raise their families. It is actually hard to think of a more family-orientated campaign. (For more on the financing of Newham’s family days and other short-term crowd-pleasers, read Mike Law’s excellent blog on that council’s likely borrowing legacy here). Wales is under investigation now – a complaint was made about his behaviour towards the mothers at the mayor’s show.

So. Perhaps the real problem here is that Wales, Newham council and the political class generally find assertive, persistent women difficult. I thought about that again this week when I found a letter that Newham council sent to the NUJ about me earlier this year. I’d forgotten about this letter, so thought I’d share it with you before I throw on my pile of Fuck Off Kate correspondence from councils. All good.

Earlier this year, I asked the NUJ to complain to Newham council when security guards stopped me from attending a public council meeting. I’d completely forgotten that the council had sent a response, but remembered this week and hauled it out. In the letter, the council said I’d be denied entry to the council meeting because I was foul mouthed and aggressive to security guards. OUTRAGEOUS. Conveniently, I have a recording of the interchange between me and the security guards that evening. You can hear me challenging the guards – as well I might, seeing as they were denying me entry to a public meeting and pushing my press pass aside – and that I actually sound quite sweet, because I am. I am in person, anyway. Generally. I like to swear all the time on social media, not least because that’s an excellent way to let off steam after exposure to a twat like Wales. Anyway – I thought about all of this when I saw Wales racing away from the Focus E15 in the video above. Not for the first time, I wondered about Newham’s two-fingered salutes to assertive women. I’ve posted more videos of those salutes at the end of this article. The Focus E15 fight is a feminist fight, all right. These female campaigners have been dismissed categorically – by Newham, by Labour, by the political class and the press. They’ve kept going, though, and generated a great deal of interest and support. It is not easy to keep things going, but they have. Continue reading →

London evicts. Women and children first, thanks

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Kate B

One development (if you can call it that) I’ve really noticed in London this year is the increase in calls and contacts from people who are facing eviction, or trying to stop an eviction right then and there, or worried that they are being pushed out of their their estates and homes by planners and developers. I decided to start to collect the stories of some of the people affected. The first two are below in this post. They’ll form part of a longer piece I’m writing on these evictions.

A few thoughts on this –

The more I talk to people, the more obvious it becomes that the real problem is the terrible lack of decent, secure, well-maintained, well-managed social housing people can easily afford. Long-term lets are especially crucial. The expensive, wildly insecure private rental sector is a challenge for most of us who rent. It can be particularly challenging and unforgiving if you have support needs. If people had secure social housing with long-term lets, a lot of the problems they’re reporting now simply would never come to pass – problems like being forced to move because a landlord wants the house or flat back, the stress of uncertain short-term tenancies, having to live in single, tiny, dirty rooms that private sector landlords pass off as flats to collect housing benefit and all the rest. I’ve spoken with people who have serious mental health problems and who simply can’t handle the idea of moving home, or to an unfamiliar environment. They are offered other places in the private sector, but that’s neither here nor there. They don’t want to move. They can’t move. But they’ve been evicted – forcibly – because the landlord wants them out.

Unfortunately, social housing waiting lists in some boroughs run into the tens of thousands – about 24,000 in Newham, 28,000 in Camden and 20,000 in Lambeth, to give a few examples. The truth is that people’s chances of securing a place that way are non-existent. (There’s another point, too – with a bigger social housing stock and better security in it, people in social housing wouldn’t be facing eviction in the growing numbers they are now, either).

Without those places, it’s up to tenants to get by in a hostile environment. Doesn’t matter that many people struggle. You beat the odds yourself, or you go down. Ours is the great era of individual responsibility, after all. Iain Duncan Smith – a man who is himself housed in his rich wife’s mansion – is very big on this Do It For Yourself concept. Individual liability at any cost is one of Universal Credit’s many rotten planks. When UC comes in for all, if it does, the housing element will be paid to claimants, who then must pay rent from it. Anyone who fails to achieve that will be dismissed as feckless. Anyone who argues for direct payment to landlords will be written off as a Nanny State relic (*waves*). No matter that the odds in that game are already stacked against plenty of people. Cuts to council tax benefit and housing benefit mean that many already pay bigger council tax bills and bigger rent demands. Using rent money to cover council tax arrears because your council threatens you with a liability order to deduct tax straight from your benefits, say, would not be irresponsible. But we’ll end up there, anyway. We live in an age where individuals must sink or swim – which usually means a lot of well-off people blathering on about responsibility while they watch other people sink.

“They told us that we have to organise the money,” one very young housing benefit tenant said to me a week or so ago when she reported back from a Jobcentre Plus meeting about Universal Credit. “They said that we shouldn’t be having fun with our money.” Continue reading →

Focus E15 mothers public meeting and marches June-July 2014

Posted on May 29, 2014 by Kate B

Tuesday 10 June 2014 – hear the Focus E15 mothers talk about their fight for social housing and see films from their campaign.

They’ll also be at The Spark in June and marching on Saturday 5 July for decent housing for all.

Decent housing is something you get if you’re rich, but must fight for if you’re not. As readers of this site will know, the young mothers of Newham’s Focus E15 temporary accommodation hostel have been battling Newham Council and the East Thames Housing Association for housing in Newham borough (links to stories on this battle below). Some of the woman have been placed in flats in the private sector – but only for a year and that year is almost half-gone for some.

The FE15 mums will speak about the FocusE15 campaign and show short films from this year’s housing office occupations and confrontations with Newham mayor Robin Wales. They’ll talk about the pressure they managed to apply to Wales and how they managed to stop the council from sending them out of London to live.

Here are a few of the films I took this year to be going on with:

Robin Wales racing out of a council meeting and away from the young mums (Wales has certainly got a turn of speed when he needs it. Look at him go):

The women occupying the council’s housing offices to demand decent social housing for all:

List of articles on Focus E15:

Open Democracy article: Why is middle class feminism so disinterested in women hit by austerity? (interviews with the Focus E15 mothers on their campaign to date)

Newham council runs out of meeting to avoid Focus E15 mothers’ protest

Focus E15 mothers take their petition for social housing to Boris at City Hall

Focus E15 mothers’ battle for social housing: an update

Young mothers occupy Newham council housing offices to demand social housing

Rubbish, mice and mould – good enough for young mums without money

Put this on a banknote: young mothers without money abandoned by the political class

Video and pictures from police breakup of anti eviction protest in Camden today

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Kate B

Here are some photos and video I took at today’s very heavy handed police eviction and breakup of an anti eviction protest in Camden. A man called Mark was being evicted – he’s a man with mental health problems who I have talked to fairly regularly over the last couple of months. He did not want to leave this house. More on that soon as I’m not sure where he is at right now and what he wants to say. The police said they took him to Camden housing offices. For now – this sort of footage shows how people are trying to stop evictions and the lengths that police will go to get anti-eviction protestors out of the way and enforce.

Anti eviction protestors, including protestors from the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group – at which Mark was a regular attendee – had linked arms across the front door so that the police and bailiffs could not get through. It became clear that the police were calling for reinforcements. There were a lot of photographers and journalists around at that point. Amazingly, the police told the press to get away from the door – that people could not film or photograph the eviction and the breakup of the protest. The hell with that, I thought. They’re obviously going to get violent and don’t want people to see it. So, I refused to go and told the police that filming police activity was in the public interest. I have to say that I’m getting very sick and tired of authorities telling me what parts of austerity can and can’t be filmed, thanks. They make it up as they go along. The police said that if I stayed, I’d risk arrest because I’d be part of the protest. I said I would stay where I was, thanks, and film the police carrying out an eviction. They did back off after warning me that any injuries I sustained as things escalated would be my problem. Bloody hell, they try it on.

Here are the protestors being removed by the TSG I think it is. I had to shoot this on my phone, although had another camera which I’ll take footage from as well. People had linked arms across the doors and the police pulled them away. This was rough. This was over the top.

Police arrest protestor at Camden eviction

Police rush anti eviction protestors Camden

The police walked Herbert, one of the people they’d arrested, a long way up the road and put him in a van by himself. They wouldn’t let us, or anyone, travel with him. Then, they moved him to another van. They said they were taking him to Holborn.

Kate Belgrave

Talking with people dealing with public sector cuts.

Category Archives: Housing