Squattings – chance or deadlock for homeless and homeless migrants? - Variant experiences from different european countries.
Although squatting of vacant houses could be an obvious option to end homelessness at least temporarily and provisorily, in fact it is a marginal field of homeless supporting activities. Therefore are almost no investigations or research nor a debate of best practices on this topic.
On one hand even in squatted houses it is possible to develop and try out self organized types of housing and living, on the other hand the condictions of adequate housing and living are far away from the average standards of housing and often the squatters are in precarious situations.
But even to migrants as people, which have no legal status given by the authorities, living in a squatted house could be a opportunity to get a niche in a transient state. On the other side the illegal state will quasi be redoubled – becauce of the negative 'illegal" image squatted houses usually are confronted in the public main stream discourse.
Selected house squattings and settlements in different countries of the European Union (projects in Poznan, Poland; Berlin, Germany; Brussels, Belgium; Paris, France; Budapest, Hungary) will be outlined, compared and analysed.
A focus would be on the issue of the possibilities of self unfolding and configuration of survival strategies for homeless migrants and people with migrational backgrounds.
At least we have to evaluate whether services to assist homeless people could or should be developed to give support and subsidy of squattings or so called illegal settlements as a strategy to reach a better level of living quality of homeless and homeless migrants.
schneider_squats_homeless_budapest_2010.pdf
