Who you gonna call? Hackney!

Squall 5, Oct/Nov 1993, pg. 23.

Hackney Council have come up with a novel way of dealing with their homelessness problem.

Advertisements appearing in local press are encouraging members of the community to ‘shop’ suspected Squatters. The ‘Squatstop’ number is actually that of the council’s emergency services, one of whose jobs is to supervise void properties.

The content of the advertisement is consistent with Hackney Council’s irrational history of dealing with squatters. (See SQUALL issue 4.)

Squall would like to make it clear that it would be completely irresponsible of people to ring this line with false information. It would be a waste of precious council resources should anyone mobilise the ‘Squatstop’ team into investigating hoax squats and also that the ‘squatstop’ team will only respond to call outs that involve council property.