Green Party Conference Emergency motion on Squatting and Housing

Emergency Motion for Green Party Conference on Squatting

This Conference deeply regrets the recent action of the Government to criminalise squatting.
We note that it will evict up to 20,000 squatters, the majority of whom are decent, honest and self-reliant people.
We note that these people will either be thrown onto the streets, or into jail, or into local authority temporary accommodation, and that the accommodation  they have been squatting will mainly revert to empty status.

We note that there are some 60,000 households are classified as homeless in the UK, while some 720,000 houses are currently empty.

We note that as well as being a waste of resources, empty houses adversely affect the neighbourhood directly (by causing dampness in adjoining terraced houses) and indirectly through aesthetic effects.

Therefore we ask our elected representatives to do all in their power to implement our present policies of Empty Property use orders as an immediate tactical response to the criminalisation of squatting, and also to press for a Land Value Tax as a strategic response to the problem of empty housing.