Author: Dan Blanchard

Mutual Aid and Hacking Covid-19

COVID-19 is a virus that affects people’s respiratory systems. While in around 8o% of cases the symptoms will be mild, it has lead to a large number of deaths internationally. It is estimated that 2-3 people out of a hundred who contract the virus will die. This can easily mean hundreds of thousands of deaths in the UK alone. We must do everything we can to prevent this from happening.

As Covid-19 becomes more than a health crisis and turns into a crisis of capitalism, with workers being laid off and health systems stretched to the limit, CODED GEOGRAPHY are working within our communities to help build mutual aid networks and support the wider tech activist respond. Those with hacking and home manufacturing skills can play an important role. See the resources below and get involved.

Resources:

Mutual Aid

Tech activists:

Silicon Roundabout

Screening of Cleansing the Silicon Roundabout

Depford Cinima

Sunday 8th May

Between 7pm – 7:45pm

Part of: Out of the Rubble – an evening of short films, discussion and debate about the future of public space in Deptford.

As works begin on transforming Old Street roundabout we thought it was worth returning to this documentary produced in 2013 as a response to the now scaled back redevelopment originally proposed by David Cameron and Boris Jonson.

Film by: Chris Jack, Sasha Scott, and John Wild. Featuring performance by Robin Bale

We Are Fucking Angry

Kill the Housing Bill

CODED GEOMETRY - We Are Fucking Angry

London is experiencing a major wave of class clearances brought about through the invisible logic of neo-liberal economics and the Tory governments attacks on the inner city working class through the benefit cap, the bedroom tax, the ban on residential squatting and now the Housing Bill.

Working class people are being forced out of their homes and areas to make way for the rich. The Housing Bill is an unprecedented attack on working class people with the ultimate aim of social cleansing London’s inner zone, creating a sanitized ‘safe space’ for the incumbent wealthy through the demolition of working class housing and their replacement with luxury flats constructed not for living but for the temporary storage of surplus value.

The Housing Bill is designed to destroy social housing, speed up the clearance of working class private renters by making it easier for landlords to evict their tenants, and force out travellers by removing the requirement for local authorities to assess their specific housing provision.

The Housing Bill proposes to:

  • Designate all existing housing estates as ‘Brown Field’ sites (a term used for formerly industrial land that needs to be cleaned up before it can be redeveloped) and put up for sale, redevelopment or demolition.
  • Sell off ‘high value’ council homes directly on the private market.
  • Introduce a ‘pay to stay’ tax by raising the rents of council properties to market levels for social tenants with a combined income of £30,000 (£40,000 in London). Effectively forcing them out of many inner-city areas.
  • End lifetime Secure Tenancies and replace them with tenancies as short as 2 years.
  • Introduce Means Testing for Council and housing association tenants, which will lead to many working people been evicted from social housing.
  • End the obligation to build council homes replacing it with an obligation to build ‘starter homes’ that only the rich can afford.
  • Make it easier for private landlords to evict renters, and do nothing to control rapidly rising private rents. One of the key tools of the class clearances.
  • Force cash-strapped councils to hand over millions of pounds to housing associations to allow them to sell their properties cheaply.
  • Remove the provision to assess the specific need of Gypsies and Travellers in accommodation assessments. This will lead to inequality of access to suitable accommodation for these minority groups.

Failure to stop the Housing Bill and the wider process of inner city class clearances will lead to an historic shift in the nature of our Cities. They will become  zoned spaces divided by class, with the rich residing in the cleansed inner zones and the working poor forced to the ghettoised periphery.

Only Working Class Direct Action can Stop the Class Clearances

Coded Geometry - Estate Agent

Reclaim Brixton

[reposted in solidarity from the Reclaim Brixton Facebook page]

Brixton is widely known for its vibrancy, which is another word for social & cultural diversity. But Brixton’s vibrancy now has a question mark on it. Will Brixton turn into a living museum or will it live?

Meet up in front of the Black Cultural Archives on Windrush square on Saturday 25 April, midday to reclaim Brixton.

Earning less than £25,000? Or long-standing Afro-Caribbean resident? Maybe artist, musician? Shopkeeper? Librarian? Community worker? A teenage skater? A senior resident? A child who likes to play outside pens? Show the world your love for Brixton.

The fight against gentrification starts here!!

Homes are ripped apart? Recreate Brixton homes & interiors on the square!

Businesses, community spaces, venues get shut? Re-enact Brixton’s bustling activist & artistic scene on the square!

Bring deco, props, musical instruments, picture frames, explanation tags, organise audio-tours, anything that highlights the threat of disappearance & tokenisation of Brixton people and Brixton culture. This is a demo and a party, create, participate, think, share and have fun!

****Reclaim Brixton is all for change and regeneration in areas that existing communities benefit, the antithesis of gentrification.*****

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Brixton is known for its vibrancy, its social & cultural diversity, not only throughout the UK, but also internationally.

When Nelson Mandela came to the UK as a free man, his first stop was in Brixton, to thank the community for its unwavering support. One of 2014’s most acclaimed British films, Pride, tells the story of a colourful alliance between a resourceful Brixton LGBT group and Welsh striking miners. Prince Charles shopped in our markets to help launch the Brixton pound (and bid to turn the Railway Hotel into a community centre, now sold to the Wahaca chain of restaurants). And Will Smith himself visited our schools (where he spun a Fresh Prince rap) in a quest he said to ‘see London’s Harlem’. Examples like these are never ending. Or are they? Will the Brixton of 2017 be visited, admired, celebrated?

Today vibrancy is sold to garnish property development posters and overpriced bar branding, but in doing so, it is also slowly being killed.

Social diversity is driven out by lack of truly affordable housing. Local businesses are driven out by increasing rents and redevelopment schemes that benefit national & multinational businesses, siphoning money out of the area. Local spaces for people to meet, celebrate, get support or education are being decimated as community groups, long-standing pubs, music venues, libraries & colleges are being relocated, down-sized, repurposed, disappeared.

Brixton’s vibrancy now has a question mark on it. Will Brixton turn into a living museum or will it live?

Join us on April 25th to celebrate, group and regroup around what makes Brixton Brixton.

*****Reclaim Brixton is all for change and regeneration in areas that existing communities benefit, the antithesis of gentrification.****

Details

Date:

25 April 2015

Time:

12:00–15:00

Venue

Windrush Square,
Brixton,
SW2 1JQ,
London,
United Kingdom

Poor Doors Demo

November 19, 2014 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

One Commercial Street (on the corner of Whitechapel High Street & Commercial Street). Every Wednesday between  6-7pm.

London is facing gentrification forcing working people out of their home boroughs as prices rise. Added to the problems of the bedroom tax, inflation, rent rises and pay cuts, working class communities are being dismantled. Social segregation is seeing people being priced out of their own areas. Nowhere is this more stark than in developments using Poor Doors. These developments provide social housing within developments with luxury flats but whilst the rich get a concierge, gyms and other services social housing tenants have no services, separate lifts and an entrance down an ally or round the back.

Class War have been protesting this on Wednesday evenings at 1 Commercial Street, which is just next to Aldgate East tube station.

We now call on all trade unionists to join us on Wednesday with banners and placards to show solidarity with working people on the fringes of The City. Together we can highlight the injustice of social segregation and widening inequality. Please come down and spread the word.

Date:
November 19, 2014

Time:
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Venue
One Commercial Street
Whitechapel High Street,
London,
E1 7PU
United Kingdom