Your say / Housing
‘Taxpayers’ money should be spent on prevention not eviction’
So many questions arise from the High Street squat evictions of June 4 and most start with why.
Why did it need more than 20 riot vans, many from outside of Avon & Somerset Constabulary? Why was the squat already empty? Why did Avon & Somerset police raid the unconnected flat above a shop and the shop below? Why didn’t they show a warrant? Why were squatters squatting there in the first place?
My job is to advocate for all residents and Central ward has more residents than generally known. In fact, it’s the largest ward population in Bristol: 21,000 people live here. And for a few weeks we had 100 or so more people living in the Old City.
is needed now More than ever
There were several different groups of people in the squats, some anarchist, some political squatters, some from Traveller communities, both ethnic and cultural.
Some squatters behaved badly, others cared for the many homeless people in the area. Some fought with each other, some fought with passing police, others offered cups of tea when I dropped by to remind them to respect the neighbours.
Essentially as with any group the actions of some are not representative of all.
Squatters outside the occupied buildings on High Street in the Old City on the evening before the police raid – photo: Martin Booth
Understandably, the regular residents were very concerned by the damage caused by the squatters.
There’s a valid point made by political squatters who squat long empty buildings such as 39/40 High Street, but this was undermined by some squatters when they squatted both a building recently closed due to the pandemic and an occupied building with an operational small business.
It is also worth keeping in mind that there have been a spate of evictions in recent weeks, with squatters being moved on to a different location. This solves nothing, just moves the squatters to another community.
Bailiffs removed a group of squatters from a building on Gloucester Road in March – photo: Martin Booth
There have been many protests in recent months about the Policing Bill. One of the results of the bill is to make squatting illegal. Not only squatting, but it also criminalises homelessness, and the transient lifestyles of ethnic travellers, which is itself a legally protected characteristic.
The month of June sees both Renters’ Rights Awareness Week and Gypsy, Roma & Traveller History Month, which aim to raise awareness of historical prejudices. Squatters protesting about the Policing Bill are protesting about the very behaviours displayed by the police early that Friday morning.
Just as squatters undermine themselves when squatting an occupied building, so too do the police undermine the validity of their actions when failing to do their homework on residents and raiding a student flat while failing to show a warrant.
Why was a council-owned building left empty for so long when we have so much homelessness?
The answer lies in how the councils are funded and the ringfencing of much spending.
We have a social housing crisis as we all know, but not a lack of buildings or expensive accommodation. The focus for social housing provision is on building new buildings, which give developers more bang for their buck.
But we need to also bring empty buildings back into use and not just for luxury apartments or student halls. We require social housing and affordable housing which is truly affordable, not a developer soundbite.
The council can’t afford to renovate its empty buildings. Housing benefit for the most vulnerable enters the pockets of private landlords, some of which are Conservative MPs.
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Read more: Rent in Bristol has gone up more than 50 per cent in under 10 years
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When social housing is sold through Right to Buy, brought in by Thatcher’s Conservative government and left in place by Blair and Brown, the money doesn’t go into the coffers of the local authority losing the social housing provision but to central government.
The cost of bringing empty buildings back into use and up to liveable standards is prohibitive, and therefore such buildings continue to lie empty whilst the housing list continues to grow and private rents soar.
Since 2015, the Right to Buy has extended to housing associations. As a renter, I understand the strong need to own one’s own home and get on the housing ladder for the security it brings. However, the result of right to buy is to pull the ladder up behind us.
Buy-to-let mortgages are further pushing up the cost of properties out of the reach of increasing amounts of people, forcing people to rent instead and therefore increasing rents. This cements the idea of properties as assets not homes.
Dozens of police raided the properties only to find no squatters inside – photo: Martin Booth
In contrast, many are asking how much the police presence, over 20 riot vans from neighbouring police forces, would have cost the tax-payer and wondering if that money could be better spent on prevention rather than eviction.
It’s telling that alongside cutting the funding to local authorities year on year, a Policing Bill progresses through parliament that prevents the public from collectively voicing their opposition as the democratic right to protest becomes curtailed.
On top of this the police budget and numbers have also been cut over the years (23,500 jobs since 2010 according to GMB), hindering some of the more community based policing.
I have made an Freedom of Information request to Avon & Somerset Police regarding the cost of the eviction to the taxpayer.
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Read more: Police officer describes moment the van he was driving was set on fire
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We are supposed to have policing by consent in the UK, which means we as the general public allow police to exist and serve the public, rather than the police forcing their presence upon us.
The police are guided by nine principles such as “to use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient”.
Avon & Somerset Police failed to do this when they did not engage with the residents of the unconnected flat and shop which they raided that morning. They have since admitted that they did not actually have a warrant to enter these properties and have promised to apologise to residents for the unlawful raid.
These are exactly the behaviours highlighted and complained about by the Black Lives Matter movement and fuel calls to defund the police. In this case, the residents have been vocal about what has happened to them but not all people are able to do so.
Defunding the police is not necessarily abolishing the police; rather it is about funnelling the police funding into support and prevention measures.
The causes of many crimes are societally based, the crime being the symptom rather than the cause. Squatting as a political movement started in the 1960s as a direct response to the housing crisis that continued into the mass homelessness of the 1980s.
Bristol has a growing crisis of housing provision. Soaring rents, so-called affordable housing that is not affordable for the masses, and the pause on evictions ended, these all point to an imminent dramatic increase in homelessness within the city.
Aside from objecting to the Police & Crime Bill, the Green Party calls for a repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824 because it is open to abuse by police and government. It discriminates against homeless people and wrongly labels them as criminals when their plight is a social problem.
If the many hundreds of thousands of pounds that are spent policing the evictions of property were spent instead on the causes of homelessness and societal problems, we would be able to start tackling the root causes in a meaningful manner.
Many Black Lives Matter protesters also want to defund the police – photo: Ellie Pipe
The Government is criminalising the result of its own policies.
More than 15 months into the coronavirus pandemic, this summer will see the effects start to bite for our most vulnerable.
The ban on evictions, the end of furlough, the return of business rates, lowering of Universal Credit, all these things are going to cause a rise in homelessness just as a Bill progresses through parliament that renders amongst other things homelessness and other alternative lifestyles illegal.
And after more than 15 months of not seeing the in-person faces of others, it’s increasingly easy to not be able to understand the experiences of others.
There are also going to be many reasons to be angry. But now more than ever we need to look beyond the outraged clickbait headlines, and ask why? Why is this happening? And direct our outrage at the appropriate source.
Ani Stafford-Townsend is the Green Party councillor for Central ward
Main photo & video: Martin Booth
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