More useful reading, this time related to the housing market.
Shelter's current ad campaign reports that 200 homes are being repossessed a week. Their website offers housing advice in relation to eviction, repossession and homelessness, and is currently highlighting the changing housing market with their film "House of Cards".
Is this squatting or is it still paying rent? Dutch company Camelot perhaps straddles the two. In exchange for a low rent, Camelot tenants have the chance to live in a variety of empty properties (ie, mansions, office blocks); but at the same time, they must also protect the site from, uh, squatters. Some argue that Camelot is "privatising squatting", that if you want to squat, squat. Others argue that squatting isn't as straightforward to initiate as you think (or easy), and that Camelot provides a halfway. Make up your own mind here and here.
Annoyed there are empty properties in your city and yet so many homeless people? The Empty Homes Agency feels for you. They have done the math: there are 783,730 empty homes in England right now. Highlighting the waste of empty property, the Agency works with other bodies to campaign for their reuse. Check out what they have to say.
Derelict London is a photographic site documenting many of London's derelict and empty spaces. Useful for squatters, perhaps? The New Statesman comments that the site "seems to trace the skeleton of a dead city while it is still in apparently rude health".
