anybody know of any squatter action near leyton jubilee park? yesterday horsemouth was stopped by a plainclothes copper claiming to have served a 'closure notice'. probably he had come across the footbridge from the marshes.
he had ID (horsemouth checked - you can't be too careful these days) and grey hair.
'are you off squatting?' he asked. horsemouth was just returning from the supermarket and so had a full rucksack and a tote bag
'no mate. way too old...'
back in the day horsemouth was a dirty squatter. he thought of himself as a lifestyle squatter in that he liked the life. he liked the wombles/ stig of the dump/ DIY aspect of it. he liked bringing empty houses back into use. there was a squatter community, there were pubs they went to (and parties afterward), and in the summer there were festivals. the city was full of empty houses, empty flats, empty warehouses - the population of london had been falling since the first world war and it wasn't til the mid 80ies that it started going back up again.
he could, of course, at any point have gone and got a bedsit and paid for it using housing benefit and gone and got a proper job (and blah blah) but why would you.
later (after a series of unfortunate events) he dropped back into society and went and got a job and started paying rent for somewhere to live, initially with friends, and at some other friends' flat while they were away on holiday, and finally he ended up in the communal endeavour housing co-operative where he has been for the last 20 or so years.
the job paid the rent and there was enough left over for horsemouth to start living in reasonable comfort and start saving. the years rolled on. horsemouth became a boring and perfectly legal citizen.
he is still fucking cautious when he deals with the cops though. best avoided is horsemouth's advice.
horsemouth's friends suggested that maybe the copper had been in a coma / time warp for a few decades and was trying to find the action, or maybe he was just suffering from nostalgia.
the law changed (but pretty soon given the english system of common law there was enough wriggle room for people to squat non-residential property and off it all went again but at a lower level). the parks are full of homeless people bedding down for the night in tents. this is progress? remarks horsemouth.
come to think about it that may be what yer man the copper was off doing.
the government everybody in program to get the rough sleepers off the streets at the start of covid shows what can be done when the government puts its mind to something. and yet the government (labour or conservative) remains committed to using its resources and muscle to provide subsidies for the over inflated housing market or for the part rent part buy aspirational voters likely to vote for them rather than poorer people in greater housing need. the housing associations, the TMOs, the ALMOs, the council housing departments, all the providers of social housing have all been mercilessly battered to discourage them from creating further social housing.
the eventual consequence of all of this? the grenfell fire where 72 people die. the homeless people in the park. the not so youngsters living at their parents. the vast farming of the young for rent money that will leave them poor in their old age.
horsemouth is giving up. he's upped stumps and back to the pavillion. he's just grateful to live in a house with central heating.
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later today horsemouth goes over to howard's. he doesn't know if they'll do anything musical or just walk around a bit before trooping off to the pub.
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