Inhabitants of Europe
Inhabitants forcibly removed from a hostel in Moscow with tear gas
On Wednesday June 25, troops from the Federal Prison Warden Service conducted a raid to forcibly remove families residing at the hostel located at number 19, Iasni Proezd Street, in the north of Moscow. For many years the Federal Service has been trying to gain possession of the premises to house prison employees. Judicial procedures have been progressing too slowly for the troops liking and those in charge of Moscow’s Prison Warden Service decided to speed up the process.
IAI message to Ministry of Justice Russian Federation against evictions foyer (english, 2008).pdf [66.05 kB]
Spain: Days for the Right to Housing without Borders
A tour of international initiatives for the right to housing and the right to the city is kicking off on Saturday 31 May in Madrid with the seminar ¿ Cómo conseguir una vivienda digna ? (How to obtain decent housing).
These initiatives are probably the first ever of their kind to be held in Spain, and will run until Saturday 7 June. They go under the name of the Days for the Right to Housing without Borders, organized by the International Alliance of Inhabitants (IAI) in partnership with the Federacion de Vecinos de Madrid
, Plataforma
por
una Vivienda
Digna
and other inhabitants collectives, and in collaboration with FAMSI-FAL and various local authorities (the Basque country government, Diputacion
from Malaga and Grenada, the communes of Jaen, Seville and Rivas).
Italia, solidarietà per fermare l'orrore prossimo venturo
In Italia, ogni giorno avvengono sgomberi di accampamenti, baracche, fabbriche abbandonate, ponti. Provate a cercare la parola - chiave "sgomberi" su www.unioneinquilini.it: il concetto e la pratica sono simili assomigliano troppo all'operazione Murabatswina (butta via l'immondizia) dello Zimbabwe di Mugabe. Vincenzo Simoni 18 maggio 2008
A sad anniversary for tenants in France
One year on from the new presidency, heralded as pro-reform, what has been achieved? Adoption of the enforceable right to housing is far from being accomplished. Voted in a hurry during the electoral campaign, the law was designed to house categories of people requesting housing considered to be priority cases, including the homeless. Target figures have not been met and procedural obstacles for candidates to be recognised as priority cases have multiplied.
Left-over spaces: recycling abandoned buildings to avoid wasting land
You write the word ‘sprawl’ and you see the edges of the city spreading ever outwards. Destroying the environment. Eating up the land. And while the city spreads like an oil slick, historic centres are losing their distinctiveness and emptying of residents, driven out by escalating prices.
The inhabitants cooperatives in Europe: a third way to popular housing
Friday 30 May 2008
This international conference addresses local administrators, practitioners, researchers, academics, inhabitants association and students who are seeking to understand the developments and challenges involved in the public problem of “popular housing”, as well as the answers that local European and American organisations are coming up with.
A delegation of the Platform will be received at the United Nations in Geneva
On the 28th and 29th April 2008, a delegation of four persons, representing NGOs and trade unions will submit an alternative report to the French government’s third periodic report on the situation of economic, social and cultural rights in France to the United Nations’ International Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights in Geneva.
Jeudi Noir does it again… and takes over “the Impasse”
Thursday, 24 April 2008 For two months, some thirty Jeudi Noir
—or Black Thursday—activists have occupied an abandoned building in the heart of the Marais, in the third arrondissement of Paris. It’s an amiable squat to protest the real-estate speculation which prevents the “ nouveaux précaires
” from finding housing. Photo and video gallery at Politis.fr
UN rapporteur questions the PSOE’s housing policy
The association Platform for Decent Housing (PVD) noted that the PSOE’s measures on housing differ significantly from the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur, Miloon Kothari. PVD is calling for the legislature to adopt measures that eliminate the causes of speculation and high prices, and not mere ‘Band Aid’ solutions and it severely criticises the Ministry of Housing’s latest measures.