News Shorts & Other Busyness

More Students Squatting

Squall 5, Oct/Nov 1993, pg. 26.

A number of London student unions are reporting a growing interest in squatting amongst their membership. According to these unions, students are increasingly amongst the rising number of homeless people unable to afford the rents and deposit required to enter private sector housing.

“I’m seeing more and more adverts for accommodation suitable for students,” says Paul Rossi, Communications and Welfare Officer at the University of London Union. “But this more often than not means that the properties are in a poor state of repair and infested in some way. They are also likely to involve all sorts of nonsense when the time comes for the students to reclaim their deposits. There is a growing interest in squatting as in many instances this will give the students a better place to live than the kind of places they could afford to rent.”