Call for the Housing Action Day on the 28th of March 2020

Since the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, the fight for the right to housing and the city has only intensified: our homes continue to be a gold mine and a mere share on the stock exchange market that does not see people and sees only profit.

Housing speculation is driving up rents and property prices, while the amount of affordable and public housing continues to decline. Our communities and neighbourhoods are rapidly being restructured to generate more profit: our favourite pub, our indispensable kindergarten or our local kiosk are under threat or have already been displaced.

While some of us have become homeowners and took on debt so that we could have a roof over our heads – always facing the risk of losing our homes to the bank as many did, some of us are tenants and receive eviction notices or rent increases that take away more and more of our monthly income. Our houses are being sold and resold with tenants inside for profit, our rents continue to rise, our homes turn into offices and co-working spaces, holiday apartments, or simply remain vacant as a financial investment.

We are served eviction notices and get violently removed from our homes, torn out of our neighbourhoods, and on to the streets. As homeless people we are forced to live in inhumane conditions.

These cruelties have become an everyday occurrence in many places in Europe and around the world. But we will not tolerate this injustice and violence any longer. The sellout of cities in the interest of the few is not a law of nature, but the consequence of an uninhibited economic system and a policy that seems to have lost any sense of social responsibility. Together we can change that!

All over the world people are rising to demand our housing rights: we need to get organized in our neighbourhoods, join forces in tenant organisations and right-to-the-city groups, block evictions, squat vacant houses, stop the auctions of our homes, and create alternative forms of living by sharing experiences with people in other cities and countries..

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