By Jerome Stern - 12 June 2013

Metropolitan Police officers raided three sites in Ilford, east London, last month where homeless people were sleeping. In the course of the raid, police officers reportedly not only evicted the rough sleepers, they also took away their sleeping bags and food parcels they had been given.

By Catharina Thörn - May 31, 2013

International media surprise that revolts can emerge in Stockholm, the supposedly prosperous “capital of Scandinavia”, stems from near-total ignorance of what has happened here over the last 30 years. Behind the urban revolts that set Stockholm on fire lies another, less visible revolution: the slow, deliberate, devastating assault on the Swedish welfare state.

By Kaitlin McNabb - rabble.ca

It seemed unreal. An independent, local, radical bookstore survived a renoviction attempt in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia. I spell that out so finitely because all those qualifiers are a sure recipe for a rent hike, renoviction and then subsequent explosion of condos. Yet, here Spartacus Books stands.

“There is a group called City Life/Vida Urbana. They are an anti-foreclosure group in Boston. They have an incredible success rate. They have staged more than 30 foreclosure blockades. They have been successful at almost every single one of them.”

By Kaitlin McNabb - May 14, 2013

So there it is. Vancouver's charming ultimatum to existing [Downtown Eastside] businesses and communities: Pay the high rent or get out. For a city wanting to be the next big cultural "it" place, it sure seems to be alienating the existing community that got it on the map in the first place. If Vancouver is not careful, it will whitewash over every unique aspect of a fledgling city and end up with a cookie-cutter version of itself.

By Maria Wallstam and Nathan Crompton - April 23, 2013

Recently, the relationship between Vancity and community groups...[has] been strained by increasing conflicts over gentrification. Vancity’s own financial interests in the neighbourhood, combined with pressure from business lobbyists and corporate media, have pressured the credit union to go to bat for the cause of gentrification...The unnamed source of the rift is the ongoing picket of the Pidgin restaurant...

By Nathan Crompton - April 18, 2013

After nine steady weeks of nightly protests by anti-poverty activists in front of the PiDGiN restaurant in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, police have stated that they plan to arrest picketers. In a press conference delivered yesterday, Vancouver Police Department spokesperson Brian Montague stated that his department is “anticipating an arrest soon.”

By Emily Dugan - April 01, 2013

Britain's poorest will be hit by a "devastating" barrage of new cuts and taxes tomorrow, as a range of government welfare changes are introduced...Millions of households will struggle as low-paid workers, disabled people and the unemployed bear the brunt of welfare reform, according to analysis by the housing charity Crisis. It warns that homelessness will rise and queues for food banks will get longer.

7th March 2013 - SchNEWS Issue 839

The absent owner of the bungalow could rest safe in the knowledge that the police were preventing a homeless man from seeking shelter in the forgotten property in -2 degree conditions...The otherwise healthy 35-year-old man Daniel Gauntlett died of hypothermia...[T]he man died unnecessarily as a direct result of the criminalization of squatting empty buildings, a law brought to the table, spearheaded and pushed through parliament by the morally vacant turd that is Mike Weatherley MP.

By Dylan Lubao - 27 February 2013

Anti-poverty advocates and homeless people held a demonstration outside Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s office February 15. Members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty erected a makeshift homeless shelter using mattresses and blankets to protest budget cuts that will eliminate approximately 115 beds from homeless shelters as well as the Personal Needs Allowance, a subsidy for daily necessities, given to those in shelters. Demonstrators strung up banners reading “Cuts Kill the Poor” and “Cuts Hurt People.”

Gentrification is the process by which poorer urban spaces are “cleaned up” and redeveloped to welcome upscale businesses and residences and the wealthier people who use them. A quick look at the City of Guelph’s long-term plans for the downtown and other areas undergoing development demonstrates that gentrification is underway in our city, and that although this gentrification is a complex process, its driving forces can be traced back to specific people and organizations.

By Alex Hundert - January 13, 2013

As imprisoned people, it could not be more obvious to us that both the austerity and so-called “tough on crime” agendas symbiotically constitute an intentional attack on poor people and communities of colour. Consequently, our hunger strike was not to be a protest just against yet another heartless austerity cut, but also in opposition to capitalism and racism, two defining features of Canada’s colonial culture.

By John Bonnar - rabble.ca

“We know that every one of these deaths is preventable...Affordable housing and services are the critical factor.”

By Dennis Moore - 4 January 2013

Figures published by the Homelessness Monitor...show that more people are becoming homeless and sleeping rough (on the streets) in England...Across the UK, significant numbers of local authorities saw rough sleeping increase by 100 percent. In a national count of people sleeping rough carried out...between autumn 2010 and 2011, an increase of 23 percent was recorded. In London the rise in rough sleeping was 43 percent above the previous year...[T]he trend is set to get much worse as council budgets are slashed and services to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping are cut.

By John Bonnar - rabble.ca

Six homeless people died last month in Toronto. The largest number of homeless deaths in one month since May 2007...Next year, the Toronto Shelter, Support & Housing Administration will see their budget cut by $128 million dollars in its housing and homelessness investments, down from $793 million in 2012 and $993 million in 2011.