Squatters have to leave former music store Spui | Amsterdam
NewsThe squatters who live in the former music store Hampe & Berkel on the Spui must leave the building before next Monday. They were told this by the examining magistrate on Thursday.
The group, which is online Autonomous shelter must have left the building no later than Monday morning, January 23 at 09:00. “The requirement was that we leave immediately, so we’re glad we still have a few days to arrange new sleeping places for everyone,” says the 28-year-old Rots, a statement from the group.
A mixed group of people had been living there for about three weeks in the national monument with the stepped gable. “People from abroad without a roof over their heads, and also refugees, from Ukraine among others. They are all vulnerable people who fall outside the regular shelter.” The group was noticed by the Amsterdam squatting scene at the building on the Spui, which had been empty for a year after the music store Hampe & Berkel closed its doors after 179 years.
Renovate
According to their own words, the building was not only squatted out of self-interest: the group will also make a statement about a shortage of accommodation in Amsterdam. “We want to draw attention to people who don’t have a safe place to sleep.”
The owner, real estate investor Four B Brothers, owns numerous addresses in Amsterdam and bought the building on the Spui in 2018. In court, the real estate investor probably made short-term renovation plans for the building, which is in poor condition. That’s why the squatters have to get out.
“We leave before Monday morning and will leave the property tidy,” says Rots, “because we can’t risk a confrontation with the police.”
A building on the Vossiusstraat, a hotel on the Plantage Middenlaan and a dry cleaner on the Kinkerstraat: there is squatting again in Amsterdam. But who are these new squatters? What drives her? Listen to the episode of the podcast Amsterdam metropolis about the comeback of squatting here:
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