A Squatter in the US explains something of what it’s like, over there.

Thanks for your response to my email. You’re the first one so far. Now, in answer to some of your questions! Squatting in the USA varies greatly from city to city. There are fairly large anarchist squatter communities in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Seattle Washington, New York and Portland Oregon. Squatting is not legal but most of the major cities have serious problems with abandoned buildings and it is a crime of lesser concern to the law enforcement agencies. Philadelphia has a huge homeless population but also has the most abandoned buildings of any city in the USA. The abandoned buildings are the result of urban sprawl. Most middle class people have left the cities to live in the suburbs, leaving only the very wealthy and the very poor in the cities. This results in a great disparity in the distribution of wealth between the neighborhoods. The current joke in this area is that the reason the crime rates of the city have fallen so much is that the criminals can’t afford to live here anymore. Crime rates in the suburbs, on the other hand, have soared.

There are many different types of squatters of course. There are those who live this way because of necessity and those who do it as a choice. There are the squats that have been fixed up and are social action hotbeds which the cops usually leave alone and then there are the buildings that are mainly inhabited by homeless people with pretty bad drug problems. These squats are very unsanitary and dangerous as well as the most common drug used in this situation is generally crack. I was working at a community garden on squatted land in West Philly, which was started up by the Rainbow people 5 years ago. The land we’re gardening on is mostly surrounded by ‘crack houses.’ One girl living there would prostitute herself out to other crackheads in order to get drugs. At one point one of her John’s gave her a puppy which she tied to the porch and never fed. We tried to get it away from her but she would fly into a fit and start attacking us everytime we approached her house. We contacted the humane society but they weren’t willing to do anything about it. In the end the puppy died. It must have been on her porch for three weeks before she figured it out and basically went mad. She dissapeared pretty soon after that. Some of the squatters-by-choice also have drug problems but among the social action crowd its not so bad. There is definitely a cliqueness to squatters here though which I feel has kept me from getting too involved with them. I don’t look very alternative in their eyes (ie, no dreds or tattoos or dyed hair) so that made it hard to meet people. Also the political squatters in this area tend to be tied in to the punk scene, which I like, but at the same time it leads to these squatters thinking they are tougher than everyone else, hence better. I don’t really like popularity contests. I don’t really know what you mean by ‘redneck phenomenon.’ I have yet to meet a squatter that one might consider a redneck. The USA definitely had its fair share of rednecks. I used to consider rednecks an american phenomenon brought on by the illusion of freedom and superiority and patriotism that is broadcasted over here but then I did some traveling around the world and realized that sort of attitude can basically be found everywhere. So anyway, I hope that gives you an idea! I tend to rant, so I’m not even certain if this all makes sense!

I haven’t found a place to stay yet in London. I did contact the ASS but haven’t heard back yet. Any other advice you could give me would really be appreciated. I might even be willing to pay rent if it were in a house filled with people who tended to lean more towards social action and vegetarianism. What I don’t want is to end up in a situation where I have roommates who could care less about anything other than drinking and sex and who eat tons of sausage or something 🙂

Thanks again,

D