On the basis of footage of residents' actions by the Squatter Group East (Kraakgroep Oost) and the Tenants' Association East (Huurdersvereniging Oost), we will discuss many years of resistance against this still ongoing attack on affordable housing.
The program also includes a new film about Frans Ondunk, chairman of the Tenants' Association East, but also known as the Sheriff of East, who fired at landlords on a daily basis.
Throughout the history of Amsterdam East, the squatting movement and the local tenants' association have propagated the same message with regularity. The property owners whose properties were squatted were often the same as those of the properties in which tenants were terrorized.
Speculators still use vacancy and dilapidation to chase tenants out of affordable housing and squeeze as much profit as possible out of our neighborhoods. Politicians have deliberately fueled the housing crisis. The gentrification policy, the yuppification, the mixing of neighborhoods was hostile to its own residents. The housing crisis is under the attention of politicians, but they are not willing to do what is necessary to solve it.
What is needed is organization from the bottom up, residents who speak out and organize together for their neighborhoods. The Tenants' Association East and the Squatter Group East have always been that kind of organization. What does the future look like?