Housing4All is a newly formed campaign for accessible housing for all citizens, highlighting the totally unacceptable lack of accessible housing for disabled people in housing need in Birmingham.
Yet another disabled person has become homeless in Birmingham this week as a result of the criminal lack of accessible housing provision by Birmingham City Council. The individual, who is a wheelchair user and also has seizures, does not want to be named publicly as he is going through a very stressful time. Despite having been categorised as the top level of priority on the housing list for over a year, and having been promised accessible accommodation over a month ago, and despite the lobbying of the Centre for Independent Living (CIL), he has been offered nothing suitable, and now has to leave the property where he has been living temporarily, with his belongings packed in boxes, by this Monday (17th September).
As a result of this, Housing4All has been formed as a campaign for accessible housing for all citizens, and has demanded an immediate response from Birmingham City Council to this inhuman and totally unacceptable treatment (which is in breach of EU human rights legislation), and the immediate provision of accessible accommodation which Birmingham City Council up to now have failed to fulfil.
This case is just one of many examples of disabled people across the UK being treated as less than full human beings by not having their most basic rights and needs met. We demand, not "special treatment", but equal treatment with all other people, meaning that we have the same access as anyone else to all the fundamental aspects of full membership in society - whether housing, employment, medical treatment or any of the other social opportunities that non-disabled people take for granted, but that we are prevented from accessing by social and economic barriers unfairly placed in our way.
In Brown's Britain, despite central and local government rhetoric about independence and empowerment, many disabled people's only choices are homelessness, completely inaccessible housing in which it would be impossible to live a tolerable life, or imprisonment without charge or hope of release in the totalitarian institutions euphemistically named "care homes" (which have been recently ruled by the Law Lords to not be covered by the Human Rights Act).
If any other group in society were subjected to this, it would be seen as completely outrageous and unacceptable by 99% of the political spectrum, but because we are seen pervasively, even by those who claim to defend "freedom" and human rights, as inferior by our very nature this sort of inhuman treatment goes unremarked on. We demand independent living for all disabled people, regardless of the severity of their impairments, in housing with all necessary adaptations to give us equal access to fundamental human freedoms as non-disabled people. Liberty and Equality must be for all, or they are for none!
If Housing4All has not received a response from Birmingham City Council about this case by 5pm on this Friday (15th September), then we will take non-violent direct action on Monday. Details of the time and location of the action will be announced over this weekend. Anyone who is interested in becoming involved with Housing4All or in being a part of the action can contact Tom Comerford (Coordinator of Housing4All and member of DAN, the Disabled People's Direct Action Network) by email on tomcomdan@hotmail.co.uk or by phone on 0121 2447985 or 07816 275985.
Showing posts with label direct action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label direct action. Show all posts
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Camp for Climate Action: a (hopefully) somewhat more coherent post
OK, so i've come down from the poetics a bit ;)
The Camp for Climate Action 2007 (or just Climate Camp) was an awesome experience. Over 1000 people coming together, through a leaderless, decentralised and locality-based autonomous process of organisation, for a week of low-impact DIY living, high-quality climate science discussion, workshops both theoretical and practical, and high-impact direct action.
I'm going to write a few more posts about specific events and issues that arose from the Camp, including disability issues, sexism/gender issues, and particular aspects of science/technology debates. Also possibly a few pics, but i only have a few and they're mostly not of the "standard" views of the camp etc (i was working on the presumption that there would be plenty of those on Indymedia and elsewhere, and also a lot of people involved, including myself, weren't particularly keen on being in many photos), but of little things that were of specific interest to me...
It was a huge emotional rollercoaster for me, involving moments of utter hopelessness for both personal and scientific reasons, but overwhelmingly one of the strongest feelings i have ever had of genuine community and being a part of something that has some hope. There were workshops and discussions on all aspects of climate science (possibly somewhat reassuringly, there was not absolute agreement between all scientists involved), and other things as diverse as feminism and practical off-grid electricity.
The camp was organised on a decentralised "neighbourhood" basis, with each area of the country having its own neighbourhood with consensus-based meetings and its own area on site with a kitchen and meeting/chilling space (this was pioneered at the anti-G8 convergence at Stirling in 2005, but, possibly because of the smaller scale, worked a lot better at Climate Camp). This meant that no one group was "the organisers", but everyone could be involved not just in the camp itself, but in the (equally if not far more important) work of building active groups in their own localities...
As well as seriousness there was a real party spirit, with music, comedy, a bar and all kinds of social networking going on (i even managed to meet some other disability activists). The awesome pedal-powered Rinky Dink sound system was a highlight, although its music policy was a little incomprehensible, consisting of heavy dub and jungle, crusty folky-punky stuff, and then... Disney movie theme songs (???)
On Sunday and Monday there was a day of mass direct action involving an all-night blockade of the British Aviation Authority's offices. Police were incredibly heavy handed (not surprisingly for anyone with experience of UK or European activism, but i think this may have been an awereness watershed for the UK media) - I among many others got some rather spectacular bruises to show for it - and the complete contrast between the attitudes to life of the state and the people was shown as overwhelmingly obviously as that betweenm life and death.
Indymedia's report on the Climate Camp is here, there are loads of pics including some awesome art drawings, photos of the big day of action including these, these, these, these and these, photos of the camp itself, and some of the other actions (including daft puddings, red herrings and many more)...
(links now unbroken)
The Camp for Climate Action 2007 (or just Climate Camp) was an awesome experience. Over 1000 people coming together, through a leaderless, decentralised and locality-based autonomous process of organisation, for a week of low-impact DIY living, high-quality climate science discussion, workshops both theoretical and practical, and high-impact direct action.
I'm going to write a few more posts about specific events and issues that arose from the Camp, including disability issues, sexism/gender issues, and particular aspects of science/technology debates. Also possibly a few pics, but i only have a few and they're mostly not of the "standard" views of the camp etc (i was working on the presumption that there would be plenty of those on Indymedia and elsewhere, and also a lot of people involved, including myself, weren't particularly keen on being in many photos), but of little things that were of specific interest to me...
It was a huge emotional rollercoaster for me, involving moments of utter hopelessness for both personal and scientific reasons, but overwhelmingly one of the strongest feelings i have ever had of genuine community and being a part of something that has some hope. There were workshops and discussions on all aspects of climate science (possibly somewhat reassuringly, there was not absolute agreement between all scientists involved), and other things as diverse as feminism and practical off-grid electricity.
The camp was organised on a decentralised "neighbourhood" basis, with each area of the country having its own neighbourhood with consensus-based meetings and its own area on site with a kitchen and meeting/chilling space (this was pioneered at the anti-G8 convergence at Stirling in 2005, but, possibly because of the smaller scale, worked a lot better at Climate Camp). This meant that no one group was "the organisers", but everyone could be involved not just in the camp itself, but in the (equally if not far more important) work of building active groups in their own localities...
As well as seriousness there was a real party spirit, with music, comedy, a bar and all kinds of social networking going on (i even managed to meet some other disability activists). The awesome pedal-powered Rinky Dink sound system was a highlight, although its music policy was a little incomprehensible, consisting of heavy dub and jungle, crusty folky-punky stuff, and then... Disney movie theme songs (???)
On Sunday and Monday there was a day of mass direct action involving an all-night blockade of the British Aviation Authority's offices. Police were incredibly heavy handed (not surprisingly for anyone with experience of UK or European activism, but i think this may have been an awereness watershed for the UK media) - I among many others got some rather spectacular bruises to show for it - and the complete contrast between the attitudes to life of the state and the people was shown as overwhelmingly obviously as that betweenm life and death.
Indymedia's report on the Climate Camp is here, there are loads of pics including some awesome art drawings, photos of the big day of action including these, these, these, these and these, photos of the camp itself, and some of the other actions (including daft puddings, red herrings and many more)...
(links now unbroken)
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Camp for Climate Action 2007
unordered thoughts, getting them down while i can... probably about 10 "proper" posts to come about it... also, i seem to have somewhat channelled the spirit of Larry Arnold for this post, as i did that of Dave Hingsburger for the last one... i think this may be a form of echolalia, but apologies to both for what might seem like unintentional plagiarism...
The Battle of the Beanfield, mark II. Baton blows like brutal lightning. Bruises like magnificent thunderstorms. NVDA meets BDSM. Oh my God - I am human. So weak and so strong. So broken and so whole. So monstrous and so beautiful. Confrontation, so different from humiliation - the very opposite of trauma. Pain can heal.
We are Hydra, they are Leviathan. If they are a big tree, we are a small axe - or better yet, if they are one big blunt axe, we are a million tiny trees. Nevertheless, the old proverb bears repeating that when the axe came into the forest, some of the trees said "the handle is one of us". Will the social tipping point be reached before the atmospheric tipping point?
A tantalising glimpse, just for a week, of what reality can be - feeling more like a real living being than in normal circumstances i would even think it possible to feel, yet almost instantly vanishing as if it was no more than a dream.
The rollercoaster of at least two completely different kinds of despair, and blazing, angry, defiant, unstoppable hope.
This is how it feels to be alive.
The Battle of the Beanfield, mark II. Baton blows like brutal lightning. Bruises like magnificent thunderstorms. NVDA meets BDSM. Oh my God - I am human. So weak and so strong. So broken and so whole. So monstrous and so beautiful. Confrontation, so different from humiliation - the very opposite of trauma. Pain can heal.
We are Hydra, they are Leviathan. If they are a big tree, we are a small axe - or better yet, if they are one big blunt axe, we are a million tiny trees. Nevertheless, the old proverb bears repeating that when the axe came into the forest, some of the trees said "the handle is one of us". Will the social tipping point be reached before the atmospheric tipping point?
A tantalising glimpse, just for a week, of what reality can be - feeling more like a real living being than in normal circumstances i would even think it possible to feel, yet almost instantly vanishing as if it was no more than a dream.
The rollercoaster of at least two completely different kinds of despair, and blazing, angry, defiant, unstoppable hope.
This is how it feels to be alive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
