The City is for All: “We are not asking for free housing” (Budapest)

avarosmindenkie.blog.hu

On the 19 January 2013, homeless activists and their allies squatted an empty building in the seventh district of Budapest. The squatters demanded the institutionalization of a right to housing and an extensive system of social housing instead of punitive measures and overcrowded shelters. The activists were arrested and now face misdemeanor charges because of disobeying police instructions.

“We do not leave until the government and local authorities take seriously mass homelessness and housing poverty,” said Jenő Keresztes, one of the homeless squatters. “We are here to raise awareness about the tens of thousands of empty buildings, where homeless people could find their home. The majority of these empty buildings are in private hands, but local authorities also have great responsibility in leaving buildings such as this one unused for years. Instead of taking care of them, they leave them to dilapidate. This building alone could serve as a home for at least 10 families,” said Jutka Lakatosné, another homeless activist.

The squatters were supported by dozens of young activists forming a living chain at the entrance of the building as well as an ever-growing group of protesters on the other side of the street. The supporters were chanting slogans such as “Housing, not jails” and “Right to housing for all!” The head of the local authority’s real estate office agency visited the house and told the protestors that the local authority has no responsibility whatsoever either for homelessness or the abandonment of the house. Five hours later the police arrived in great numbers and arrested one by one the activists blocking the entrance of the building. The activists did not cooperate and therefore were carried by police to police cars. The supporting protesters first chanted “We are with you” right near the activists. Later, the police pushed them back where they could not see the arrests anymore, but they stayed until the last one of the activists was taken away from the location and supported them with loud drumming and chanting.

“I do not have housing worthy of human dignity either, I am just temporarily allowed to stay in an otherwise empty building which does not have heating. Nonetheless I do not fight for myself alone: we would like everyone to have access to decent, affordable and healthy housing, and we want the government and the local authorities to take responsibility for this,” said László Dombovári, a homeless activist. In Hungary there are currently millions of people suffering from various forms of housing poverty. Ten thousand of them are living in the public spaces or shelters of Budapest. Around half a million families have arrears that threaten their housing, and every fifth household gets behind with their mortgage payments due to lack of resources.

The City is for All supports the demands of the homeless activists. We have organized several marches to raise awareness about empty buildings and demand their utilization, spelled out our related policy recommendations, and protested for the codification of a right to housing and the establishment of an extensive system of social housing. According to The City is for All, the implementation of a right to housing should include a ban on evictions without the provision of acceptable housing alternatives as well as housing policies that ensure access to decent housing for everyone. Right to housing would not mean the provision of free housing by the state, but that the state establishes and maintains a system of housing policies that ensure fair access to housing for all members of the society.

Editor’s Note. Thanks to the Reclaiming Spaces mailing list for the heads-up. The blog post above has been very slightly edited to make it more readable.

Social Housing – Housing the Social (Amsterdam)

Social Housing – Housing the Social is the second edition of Actors, Agents and Attendants, a series of symposia initiated by SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain. This two-day symposium takes place on November 4 and 5, 2011, at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The symposium emphasises the relationship between the waning political and practical imperative of social housing and the broader conceptual or philosophical idea of ‘housing the social’.

Given the increasing global conditions of unequal wealth distribution, and the specific urgency brought about by cuts in social and cultural funding in the Netherlands, can forms of cultural production be reclaimed as tools with which to design and defend social space, or are the agents and engineers of such projects merely tools in the further decoration of reduced welfare rights? What do we want cities to accommodate today? What is the legacy of the utopian ideals of the ’60s and what alternative plans for living together in cities are being incubated now? How do we deal with the very real problems of social division brought about by poverty, migration, addiction, lack of representation? What roles do artists, designers, architects play in this process?

PROGRAMME

The programme of the symposium combines keynote lectures, presentations and panel sessions with specific case studies, discussions, performances and film screenings. Please note the official language is English. View the full programme here.

ADMISSION
2-day admittance: E 40,-
1-day admittance: E 25,-

Reduced fee for students and persons aged 26 and under
2-day admittance: E 25,
1-day admittance: E 15,-

Admittance includes: symposium booklet, coffee, lunch, dinner and refreshments.

REGISTRATION is possible here (deadline October 31, 2011).

Curious about the first edition? See this link for Speculations on the Cultural Organisation of Civility.

CONTRIBUTORS & KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Yazid Anani (architect, Birzeit University, Palestine), Laura Burkhalter (architect, Institute for Bionomic Urbanism, USA), Joana Conill (film director, S), Chto Delat (artist collective, R), Adri Duivesteijn (PvdA, NL), DUS Architects (architect collective, NL), Zoran Eric (curator, MOCA Belgrade, SER), Fallen Fruit (art and activist collective, USA), Bregtje van der Haak (documentary filmmaker, NL), Jeanne van Heeswijk (artist, NL), Ernst van den Hemel (philosopher and activist, NL), Jiang Jun (editor-in-chief, Urban China Magazine, CN), Chris Keulemans (artistic director, Tolhuistuin, NL), Sabrina Lindeman (artist, NL), Don Mitchell (urban geographer, Syracuse University, USA), Merijn Oudenampsen (social and political scientist, NL), Marjetica Potrc (artist and architect, SLO), Partizan Publik (design and action collective), Recht auf Stadt (activists, Hamburg, D), Arnold Reijndorp (urban sociologist UvA, NL, to be confirmed), Arno van Roosmalen (director STROOM, NL), Martha Rosler (artist, USA), Christoph Schaefer (artist, D), Pelin Tan (sociologist, Technical University Istanbul, TR), Ultra-red (artist collective, international), Roman Vasseur (artist, UK) and Ymere housing corporation (NL).

Curators: Fulya Erdemci (SKOR) and Andrea Phillips (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Associate curator and coordinator: Vesna Madzoski (SKOR)
Architectural advisor: Markus Miessen (Studio Miessen)

Research Group: Arno van Roosmalen (director, Stroom Den Haag), Bregtje van der Haak (documentary filmmaker), Chris Keulemans (artistic director, Tolhuistuin Amsterdam), Ernst van den Hemel (philosopher and activist, University of Amsterdam), Huib Haye van der Werf (curator, SKOR), Nils van Beek (curator, SKOR), Partizan Publik (design and action collective, Amsterdam), and Theo Tegelaers (curator, SKOR)
Interns: Laura Pardo and Michelle Franke

SKOR
Ruysdaelkade 2
1072AG Amsterdam
T 020-6722525
E info@skor.nl
W www.skor.nl

World Communal Heritage

http://communalheritage.wordpress.com/

Manifesto

Since the so called victory of western neo-liberal capitalism, communal services and public space are being predatory privatized. It’s our task to stop the destructive appropriation of communal heritage by the tycoons! Before the words public and communal fade away from our vocabulary we want to remind everyone of one great achievement of the 20th century: equally accessible public space. Here we are not referring to the public space as the place of representation for the state and its elites, such as public squares or state cultural institutions.

We think of the non-proprietary communal space created around the Modernist apartment-blocks often – though not always – built at the periphery of urban centers.

From France to the Soviet Union, Modernist town planning and public housing was driven by the idea of securing equal access to urban infrastructure, to light, air and green space. The solution were high-rise apartment-blocks that left a lot of open space for communal facilities such as schools, kindergartens, community houses with playgrounds, sports fields, pathways, and meadows in between the developments. These park-like spaces, immediately outside the dwelling, are available to all in equal measure and open for everybody’s use.

Let us constitute those open spaces as political space!

There are no safeguards or fences that could slow down your pace! You can gather together without paying a fortune for the gentrified lifestyle in the inner-city! The openness, porosity and communicability of Modernist social architecture and landscaping that takes shape in a wealth of free space, pedestrian pathways, bridges, passages, niches, little woods and bushes is giving possibility of direct action, so let’s take it:

Between the blocks, social movements are born!

Obviously some part of society perceives this potential as a security risk that is hard to control. In former welfare-states, Modernist multi-storey apartment-blocks are being violently condemned and – like the Heygate Estate in London – are being torn down to make room for new buildings for wealthier clients. According to the same profit-driven logics, the city authorities in former socialist states sell open communal spaces to private investors that use them for the purposes of individual exploitation.

The World Communal Heritage campaign supports communities and individuals that want to organize and take action to prevent the destruction of communal space in their neighborhoods.

We affirm the idea of common goods that are managed by the community and we acknowledge the communal as heritage that must be further developed by the community – and not by individualistic interests.

Therefore we call to organize and to take over the future of the communal spaces in our hands!

Join in the World Communal Heritage Campaign!

Any communal, open space can be nominated by citizens, individuals, groups or communities as World Communal Heritage.

We initially present several spaces that bear the attributes of World Communal Heritage. These are communal spaces in the following micro-raions, housing estates or satellite towns: Botanica, Rîşcani and Buiucani in Chişinău (Moldavia), Heygate Estate in London (United Kingdom), Block 70 and Block 63 in New Belgrade (Serbia), Gropiusstadt in Berlin and Langwasser in Nürnberg (Germany).

We invite everyone interested to nominate and affirm their additional suggestions!

You can use the stickers, the logo and material for the initiation of a new campaign anywhere in the world.

You are invited to self-organize and to install a panel indicating that a space is acknowledged as a World Communal Heritage Site as shown on the pictures from New Belgrade and Chişinău.

World Communal Heritage is an initiative by Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić to affirm the open spaces of Modernist urbanism as non-proprietary communal heritage.