Mujer Libre
11th December 2008, 03:19
Not sure how I forgot to post information about SHAC on Revleft for four months, but there ya go...
Basically, student's in Australia are being squeezed out of the rental market- with rents and demand for accommodation rising, along with prices. As a result, many students are forced to pay most of their income in rent, or worse, to live on friend's and family's couches- effectively homeless and often in really shit conditions.
And this is at Melbourne, one of the most prestigious and wealthiest universities in Australia.
So- a bunch of Unimelb students have squatted four disused terraces that belong to the uni (they used to house the counselling service, but haven;t been in use for 3 years) and have converted them into a safe, usable housing space- as well as a space for community activities and meetings.
There's a safer spaces policy, along with autonomous queer and women's spaces, single bedrooms and dorm rooms, a meeting room and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Of course, Melbourne University has been trying to evict the students, initially playing the "fire safety" card (while claiming that students being forced to sleep on people's couches isn;t really a problem...), and it looks like their eviction efforts are due to step up. So it would be great if everyone in the area could turn up at SHAC to show their support.
I'll post further news here.
SHAC
272-278 Faraday Street, Carlton
An excerpt from Slackbastard:
Miki Perkins
The Age
November 27, 2008 STUDENTS squatters are refusing to leave a Melbourne University property in defiance of an final eviction notice.
About 20 students have occupied four terrace houses in Faraday Street, Carlton, since August to highlight the scarcity of affordable accommodation.
This week the university issued an ultimatum to squatters that they leave by tomorrow.
But the students, who formed the Student Housing Action Collective (SHAC), have refused to move out and will hold a rally at the houses tomorrow.
“We have nowhere else to go and this rally shows that we’re not planning to go quietly,” student Elizabeth Patterson said.
Inner Melbourne rental vacancy rates are only 1.1 per cent and median rents have gone up by 17 per cent.
The students have proposed converting the properties into a student-run housing co-operative under housing association Common Equity Housing.
“We’re not asking the university for any money. We can finance the conversion ourselves with Common Equity,” SHAC spokesman Teishan Ahearne said.
University spokeswoman Christina Buckridge said she expected that students would move out tomorrow after the university had allowed them to stay until exams finished.
The university said it would not discuss the housing co-operative proposal while university property was occupied.
The houses are to be refurbished as a centre for student off-campus activities.
Christina is the Corporate Affairs Manager @ the University on Melbourne: that is, chief propagandist for the institution. As such, her statement is largely meaningless: until such time as sufficient pressure is placed upon University authorities to agree to negotiations, they presumably believe that they have little to lose by telling concerned students to go fuck themselves.
Given a certain level of rat-cunning on the part of the bean-counters running the ship, the eviction may well proceed at a slightly later date. Over the Summer, perhaps, when many students are otherwise occupied and less able to rally to the support of the occupiers.
Note that the buildings themselves were left unoccupied and unused for several years prior to the August occupation. Note also that the University was more than happy to run Melbourne University Private (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=196763§ioncode=26) (2000-2008) at a loss of $20 million, and has recently embarked on a further decimation of the Arts faculty. In the meantime, the University of Melbourne’s VC Glyn Davis (http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/power-talking/2008/04/04/1207249453785.html) earned $610,000 (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22013394-12332,00.html) in 2007, and lives on campus in a house that is not included in that package.
That is, Glyn Davis lives rent-free.
In Sydney, students at the University of Sydney enjoy the dubious delights of STUCCO (http://www.stucco.soc.usyd.edu.au/). According to its website: “In 1982, a group of Sydney University students came together to establish community housing. An old glass-making factory was purchased and renovated with a design from the architecture faculty at Sydney University, based around a central courtyard and retaining much of the original timber structure. Funding was supplied by the university and the Department of Housing. STUCCO opened in its current form in February 1991.” Missing from this brief history is the fact that, prior to its purchase in 1982, the factory was squatted: it was only after a struggle such as the one SHAC is now engaged in that the University gave in to common sense and provided some assistance to students wanting low-cost accommodation.
“I like anything that gives people the chance to get together and talk about ideas,” says Davis, 48. “The world is such a fascinating place and it’s full of such possibilities, and how else do you access that except for listening to people talk and debate? A signal to the community that there can be a debate outside the confines of the partisan political process is a really good thing in my view. That we can talk about ideas and not have to frame them in a for-and-against debate isn’t how we (usually) discuss ideas in this country. It will actually, I hope, crack open the agenda a little; there will be a whole range of things we don’t normally talk about.”
And if you don’t leave, we’ll call the cops.
Source (http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com/?p=1496)
Basically, student's in Australia are being squeezed out of the rental market- with rents and demand for accommodation rising, along with prices. As a result, many students are forced to pay most of their income in rent, or worse, to live on friend's and family's couches- effectively homeless and often in really shit conditions.
And this is at Melbourne, one of the most prestigious and wealthiest universities in Australia.
So- a bunch of Unimelb students have squatted four disused terraces that belong to the uni (they used to house the counselling service, but haven;t been in use for 3 years) and have converted them into a safe, usable housing space- as well as a space for community activities and meetings.
There's a safer spaces policy, along with autonomous queer and women's spaces, single bedrooms and dorm rooms, a meeting room and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Of course, Melbourne University has been trying to evict the students, initially playing the "fire safety" card (while claiming that students being forced to sleep on people's couches isn;t really a problem...), and it looks like their eviction efforts are due to step up. So it would be great if everyone in the area could turn up at SHAC to show their support.
I'll post further news here.
SHAC
272-278 Faraday Street, Carlton
An excerpt from Slackbastard:
Miki Perkins
The Age
November 27, 2008 STUDENTS squatters are refusing to leave a Melbourne University property in defiance of an final eviction notice.
About 20 students have occupied four terrace houses in Faraday Street, Carlton, since August to highlight the scarcity of affordable accommodation.
This week the university issued an ultimatum to squatters that they leave by tomorrow.
But the students, who formed the Student Housing Action Collective (SHAC), have refused to move out and will hold a rally at the houses tomorrow.
“We have nowhere else to go and this rally shows that we’re not planning to go quietly,” student Elizabeth Patterson said.
Inner Melbourne rental vacancy rates are only 1.1 per cent and median rents have gone up by 17 per cent.
The students have proposed converting the properties into a student-run housing co-operative under housing association Common Equity Housing.
“We’re not asking the university for any money. We can finance the conversion ourselves with Common Equity,” SHAC spokesman Teishan Ahearne said.
University spokeswoman Christina Buckridge said she expected that students would move out tomorrow after the university had allowed them to stay until exams finished.
The university said it would not discuss the housing co-operative proposal while university property was occupied.
The houses are to be refurbished as a centre for student off-campus activities.
Christina is the Corporate Affairs Manager @ the University on Melbourne: that is, chief propagandist for the institution. As such, her statement is largely meaningless: until such time as sufficient pressure is placed upon University authorities to agree to negotiations, they presumably believe that they have little to lose by telling concerned students to go fuck themselves.
Given a certain level of rat-cunning on the part of the bean-counters running the ship, the eviction may well proceed at a slightly later date. Over the Summer, perhaps, when many students are otherwise occupied and less able to rally to the support of the occupiers.
Note that the buildings themselves were left unoccupied and unused for several years prior to the August occupation. Note also that the University was more than happy to run Melbourne University Private (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=196763§ioncode=26) (2000-2008) at a loss of $20 million, and has recently embarked on a further decimation of the Arts faculty. In the meantime, the University of Melbourne’s VC Glyn Davis (http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/power-talking/2008/04/04/1207249453785.html) earned $610,000 (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22013394-12332,00.html) in 2007, and lives on campus in a house that is not included in that package.
That is, Glyn Davis lives rent-free.
In Sydney, students at the University of Sydney enjoy the dubious delights of STUCCO (http://www.stucco.soc.usyd.edu.au/). According to its website: “In 1982, a group of Sydney University students came together to establish community housing. An old glass-making factory was purchased and renovated with a design from the architecture faculty at Sydney University, based around a central courtyard and retaining much of the original timber structure. Funding was supplied by the university and the Department of Housing. STUCCO opened in its current form in February 1991.” Missing from this brief history is the fact that, prior to its purchase in 1982, the factory was squatted: it was only after a struggle such as the one SHAC is now engaged in that the University gave in to common sense and provided some assistance to students wanting low-cost accommodation.
“I like anything that gives people the chance to get together and talk about ideas,” says Davis, 48. “The world is such a fascinating place and it’s full of such possibilities, and how else do you access that except for listening to people talk and debate? A signal to the community that there can be a debate outside the confines of the partisan political process is a really good thing in my view. That we can talk about ideas and not have to frame them in a for-and-against debate isn’t how we (usually) discuss ideas in this country. It will actually, I hope, crack open the agenda a little; there will be a whole range of things we don’t normally talk about.”
And if you don’t leave, we’ll call the cops.
Source (http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com/?p=1496)