{"id":16203,"date":"2015-04-28T20:37:21","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T19:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=16203"},"modified":"2015-04-28T20:41:30","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T19:41:30","slug":"squatters-take-over-soho-offices-to-create-a-hub-for-londons-homeless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/squatters-take-over-soho-offices-to-create-a-hub-for-londons-homeless\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatters take over Soho offices to create a hub for London’s growing homeless"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

Squatters have occupied a former office block in the\u00a0heart of trendy Soho,\u00a0and have said that they intend to\u00a0turn it into a hub for the capital’s growing army of homeless people.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

I popped in to see the squatters this afternoon, and once I’d got past the understandably cautious chap on the front door, found them to be a welcoming bunch.<\/p>\n

One immediately offered me a roll up and a can of cider, while several\u00a0others sat around and were keen to have a chat. One later got out a guitar, while another quietly fell asleep in his chair.<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

The activists said that by providing shelter for the homeless they wished to, “embarrass Westminster council and people in positions of power by doing the work they should be doing.”<\/p>\n

Talking to the Standard<\/a>,\u00a0Jon, a member of Street Kitchen, added:<\/p>\n

We want to offer a safe space policy to vulnerable and homeless people – no drugs, no violence, racism or sexism.<\/p>\n

Our aim is to ensure no one has to sleep on the streets of London. There are thousands but to us one person is too many.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

The squatters have enraged the right wing press\u00a0by taking over a string of\u00a0prestigious central London addresses this year, including the former Institute of Directors HQ on Pall Mall and an 18th century Grade II listed property in nearby Carlisle Street.<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

Their latest ‘acquisition to their portfolio’ – a five\u00a0storey\u00a0building in Frith Street\u00a0–\u00a0was formerly used by the digital agency Reading Room before being sold off to the\u00a0John Lewis Pensions Partnership Trust in 2006 for \u00a314.5 million. As far as I know it has lain empty since.<\/p>\n

Last year, the company\u00a0submitted an application to turn the building into ten flats with a ground-floor restaurant and\u00a0a new luxury penthouse apartment.<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

There was no provision for affordable housing in the proposals because housing poor people\u00a0was deemed, \u201cnot viable and not practical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the company pledged to make a payment to the council to fund new affordable housing elsewhere, a practice that didn’t find favour on our forums<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As for paying the council to get around the social\/affordable housing obligation – I have no polite words for people like that at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another poster added:<\/p>\n

Shame to see John Lewis knee deep in luxury property development.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

A look inside<\/strong><\/p>\n

The place is huge and pretty much completely empty\u00a0of any furnishings on all floors.<\/p>\n

In the corner of some of the rooms I saw one or two homeless people enjoying a warm spot to sleep, while\u00a0a few\u00a0sleeping bags and a tragically small collection of personal belongings\u00a0were left in other spaces.<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

The building’s\u00a0legacy as a digital agency can be seen in some of the wall\u00a0decorations, displaying what could now be described as vintage game graphics.<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

A lone sleeper.<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

A rich choice of fooderies for the previous occupants.<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

Sleeping inside the executive offices.<\/p>\n

\"Squatters<\/p>\n

Discuss this on the forums: Squatters take over Soho offices to create a hub for London’s homeless people<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Squatters have occupied a former office block in the\u00a0heart of trendy Soho,\u00a0and have said that they intend to\u00a0turn it into a hub for the capital’s growing army of homeless people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,456,17,193],"tags":[1117,1118,354,10,190,466,684],"class_list":["post-16203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-news","category-photos","category-places","tag-frith-street","tag-homeless","tag-housing","tag-london","tag-soho","tag-squat","tag-squatting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/frith-street-squat-london-06.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-4dl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16203"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16211,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16203\/revisions\/16211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}