The Thames Reach response to the Government consultation on squatting rejects calls for the criminalisation of squatting and calls for stronger obligations on local authorities and owners to deal with empty properties and for support and enforcement agencies to work more closely together to close down squats.
It focuses on the experiences of Thames Reach street outreach teams working with London’s homeless and its London Reconnection Project which works with destitute Central and Eastern Europeans living in appalling conditions in squats and derelict buildings often found in abandoned commercial properties rather than residential properties.
It notes that people engaged in squatting do so to seek shelter when other routes are not open to them but that the state of the derelict buildings used pose a risk to those sheltering in them, others who visit and the local communities.
It argues that these squats need to be closed down and that the occupants are assisted into accommodation and treatment rather than being criminalised.
The response notes that many squatters struggle with drink, drug and mental health problems. It notes the need for support and enforcement agencies to work more closely to close down squats and help people get their lives back on track.
The squats found by Thames Reach staff were dangerous places with high levels of drug use and the buildings were invariably run down and derelict. Some of the conditions found by Thames Reach staff include buildings with no plumbing facilities where rooms are used as communal toilets, hypodermic syringes are scattered about, lift shafts lie open and the walls are crumbling.
The charity is aware of deaths in five different London boroughs, with one particular squat seeing two deaths – one murder and one overdose – in the past six months.
Thames Reach is calling for more joint working and intelligence sharing between different organisations involved in squat closures including the fire brigade, police, support agencies such as Thames Reach, the UK Borders Agency, local community representatives and owners of the buildings.
Thames Reach’s response calls for a greater obligation on local authorities to manage squat clearances and on the owners of buildings to contribute to closure activity and ensure that the building is subsequently sealed and protected so that is not squatted again. It notes that when support agencies and police close down squats, they are often up and running again very soon.
The response argues that there is existing legislation and criminal law to tackle squatting and protect the rights of property owners and that the media representation of squatting tends to demonise or romanticize squatters rather than reflecting the terrible reality of squats in the UK in 2011.
Jeremy Swain, Thames Reach Chief Executive, said “The stereotypes of squatting which polarise around family homes being taken over by aggressive squatters or groups of people in housing need contentedly living in a communal nirvana are extremely unhelpful and some way from the real experiences of those squatting in derelict buildings that Thames Reach staff witness on a daily basis.”
