People

The place where I work is desperate for larger accommodation. Crates of donated food for our food bank are stacked in the meeting room (because we know there'll be fewer donations after Christmas); advice sessions take place at desks because we don’t have enough private interview rooms; our English teachers teach behind a curtain in the entrance lobby. Accommodation in Oxford is absurdly expensive so I always have my eye out for unexpected places we could move to. A month ago I went up to the windows of this garage that’s been empty for two years wondering whether it might be usable. But I found a notice saying it belonged to Wadham College (part of the university) and would be demolished for redevelopment so I forgot about it.
 
Yesterday I heard that a group of rough sleepers found the building open on New Year’s Eve, occupied it and have been there since.
 
Oxford’s 61-bed homeless hostel closed last January and for this and other reasons the number of rough sleepers in Oxford has increased 50% in the last year (300% over the last five years). In November we heard that the other hostel will be ‘decommissioned’ over the next year, losing 52 beds. Over the same period the organisation that provides transition housing for those moving towards independence from homelesseness is also losing its funding so another 150 beds are going.
 
Those occupying the old garage have written to Wadham College to let them know that it is being used as a shelter, that efforts are being made to make the building safe and habitable (debris removal, inspection by electricians, unsafe areas being cordoned off…) and asking the college to allow the building to continue as a shelter for the three months, during the worst of the winter, before development work is due to start. They ask the college to be compassionate and support the needs of the local community.

An online petition in support of the occupation has been signed by academics and by Wadham students. The college, tiptoeing around a PR bomb, has posted a note on its website saying it is concerned for the safety of those in the building.
 
This morning someone offered our organisation duvets so I suggested they take them to the garage instead. At midday I heard that an eviction notice had been taped to the window (oddly, from Midcounties Cooperative which I have since discovered owned the site until 2010). When I went by this evening there was no sign of that notice* but a statement was taped to the window questioning the legality of eviction. No-one was in sight but someone arriving for a meeting assured me that the occupation was continuing.
 
 
More to come...


*Edit - found it later round the side of the building. The eviction notice is from 'Midcounties Cooperative Investments'. So they have at the very least maintained an interest in the site since it was reported in 2010 that they had sold it.