Hackney Council to evict Dalston squatters

Squatters face eviction from a house that has lain officially vacant for years. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Hackney Council is under fire over plans to sell off prime real estate despite the borough being in the grip of a housing crisis.

Last month bailiffs unsuccessfully tried to evict a group of squatters from the three storey council-owned house, 5 St Mark’s Rise in Dalston, which has lain vacant for many years.

Housing chiefs say they plan to press ahead with eviction and place the building in the hands of a private security firm providing live-in ‘property guardians’ to prevent the squatters from re-entering.

If renovated, the house could provide homes for several families on the waiting list for a council flat, but the Town Hall hopes to eventually sell it and plough the proceeds into patching up other parts of its ageing housing stock.
Because of the building’s size and proximity to the new Dalston Junction station, it is expected it could net well in excess of £1million if sold at auction.

Activists from campaign group Squatters’ Action for Secure Homes (SQUASH) condemned the plan as “disgraceful”, and a note plastered on hoardings surrounding 5 St Mark’s Rise stated: “What the council calls regeneration is the forced sale of our neighbourhoods and lives to developers.”

The squatters also claimed the building had been “neglected” by the council but that the group, which has been occupying it for three years, had carried out repairs.

SQUASH campaigner Reuben Taylor told the Citizen: “Quite apart from the fact that the council is selling off its housing stock, which is bad enough, it makes no sense to evict squatters and get a private security firm to provide tenants.”

A spokeswoman for Hackney Homes, the council’s housing managers, said: “Hackney Homes can confirm that plans are in the pipeline to evict the squatters and move in property guardians who in the short term will look after the property.

“Due to the significant cost of bringing it up to lettings standard combined with the fact that extensive fire damage has left the property structurally unsound, it has been decided that this property will be sold and funds from the sale will be used to renovate another three properties to let out to families in need.”

‘Criminalising homelessness’

A government consultation on proposals to criminalise squatting ended earlier this month. Under existing legislation, trespass is a civil offence, meaning property owners must apply through the civil courts for permission to evict squatters. If new legislation is passed, police will have the power to carry out evictions and squatters could be liable to prosecution.

Opponents of the plans have warned they could cause a surge in homelessness in Hackney, which is home to many disused buildings and has long been associated with squatting.

Former Hackney squatters include street artist Stik, who said he had lived “on and off” for eight years in buildings, including council-owned properties in Hackney Central and Wick.

He said: “I was homeless and outside the system. If I hadn’t been able to squat I would have died. This new law would make life on the streets a lot more dangerous.”

The case of Well Street

The Well Furnished squat above the now defunct This n’ That store in Valentine Road, off Well Street, south Hackney, was evicted in August by landlords the Hackney Endowed Trustees (HET) charity, formerly the Joint Estates Charities, which owns several properties in the area, some of which have been empty for as long as seven years.

Kathryn Garrity, who lived in Well Furnished and has since moved to another empty property nearby, said the buildings had been neglected by HET and that the squat had improved the area.

She said: “There were people who passed Well Street and didn’t even know it existed but who started coming to the street because what we were doing. We were putting on events for free at no cost to the taxpayer. What they have done in evicting us has cost the taxpayer lots of money because they had around 15 police there and high court bailiffs.”

She added: “If I wasn’t squatting I wouldn’t be able to live in London, and London is the only place where I can get the kind of work that I want to do. I don’t feel that I have any other choice but to squat.”

The vacant properties in Well Street have long been a bugbear for the Well Street Traders and Residents Association (WESTRA) and its secretary Ian Rathbone.

Mr Rathbone told the Citizen: “What we’ve been saying is that we want to see them filled, which I think fits in with what the squatters themselves have been saying. It sounds a strange thing to say, but if they weren’t empty they wouldn’t be squatting them.”

The property in Valentine Road is currently guarded by a private security company.

Geoff Taylor, Chair of HET, said an application would be submitted to the council soon to bring the vacant buildings back into use with retail on the bottom floor and accommodation above. He said the charity would endeavour to keep the community “more informed than we have done in the past” about its plans, and claimed more details would be released shortly.

He added: “The squatters have cost the charity an enormous amount of money. They were in some cases scaring some of the neighbours. I don’t regard them as an unqualified blessing on Well Street.”

Hackney Council said it had reduced the number of long-term empty street properties in its portfolio from 37 to 9 in the last year, bringing back 17 units into use for social renting.

A spokeswoman added: “The average cost of these works was £100,000 per property (over £2.8m during the past year) with funding from the Government, the council and Hackney Homes.”

She said 16 short term empty street properties were being prepared for re-letting to families in need of housing.

According to data quoted recently in the Guardian, Hackney has more than 15,500 people on its housing waiting list and 2,000 registered as homeless.

Related: Hackney Citizens Advice Bureau warns of rise in illegal evictions