Tenants Meet About Reprivatization

On Dec. 10, over 100 people met to talk about the reprivatization of their buildings.  There was a presentation about what to expect and what could be done, with emphasis on taking direct action and immediate organizing for mutual self-defense.

The meeting was focused on one neighbourhood and we plan to make similar meetings all throughout January, each time focusing on a different neighbourhood.

Notices were delivered to houses which were on a list maintained by the city. Despite the fact that the city claims this is "confidential information" which may not be copied or disseminated, we will not be deterred and we plan to reach as many people as possible. Read more!

City Hall Occupation of President's Office

Today we decided to visit the President of Warsaw in City Hall. People announced they were there to see her and took over the meeting room. A ZSP banner was hung on the balcony of the office overlooking the square and as soon as we decided to speak from the bullhorn from the office, Vice President Jakubiak showed up. As we have much outstanding business with him and matters to discuss, we sat down to a meeting. The Tenants' Defense Committee presented 20 postulates which they would like to be implemented and demanded that he answer each one. The meeting was filmed and went out on the radio. 

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Tenants Protest, Strike Actions Continue

Today tenants blocked rush hour traffic and demonstrated against city housing policy, calling for the dismissal of the entire adminstration and condemning the role of all authorities in supporting the system of exploitation and speculation. 

With slogans such as "evict the administrators before they evict you", "trust the authorities and you will wind up homeless" or "communal housing in the hands of the tenants", the demonstration made its way around the center of the Praga district, which is highly effected by reprivatization, rent increases and gentrification. Some undercover cops made their way into the demonstration and tried to arrest one member of ZSP but people blocked the police car and he was unarrested. Then they tried to arrest another, but again unsucessfully. The demo lasted a couple of hours, speeches were made and people invited to join the struggle. Hundreds of leaflets and copies of our newspaper, Zaplata, were handed out.

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Thousands of Buildings Now Public Housing May be Privatized

From Oct. 15-17, members of ZSP Warsaw delivered notices to over 1000 buildings in Warsaw informing the tenants that their buildings, now public housing, may be privatized. Currently there are claims for close to 10,000 buildings in the city - tens of thousands of people living in public housing may be effected and soon face drastic rent increases or eviction.

The information on which buildings in the center of Warsaw already have cases in court concerning their reprivatization came from a classified document which we received. See the press release below.
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Tenants Open Assemblies

In connection with the Warsaw rent strike and in response to the city's fake social consultations, ZSP, together with the Tenants' Defense Committee. has been holding open assemblies of tenants. The aim of the assemblies is to build the protest movement and encourage activity and self-organization in the various neighbourhoods of Warsaw. At the first meeting the idea for some protests were  generated which will take place this week. In the meanwhile, people are trying to gather more support in the neighbourhoods to organize themselves and take action. Read more!

Demonstration and Action Against So-Called "Consultation"

 

Today tenant activists protested in front of a court in Warsaw against the legal farce that many people encounter there. Many tenants wind up in court fighting for the right to live in their homes after unfairly losing legal title or fighting against eviction. In the most dramatic of cases, they sometimes even have to fight for the right to their children because the state can take them away if their housing is substandard.

After some time, the crowd went to the so-called "social consultation" that the city tried to organize to avoid speaking to tenant organizations. The city organized the meeting on the same day the protest was called, quietly announced it and required people to register, giving them only two days to do so. Activists delivered a couple of hundred registration forms, dashing the hopes of the bureaucrats to hold this "consultation" without the activists.

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Demonstration: Public Housing in the Hands of the People!

ZSP held the first of a series of demonstrations since the calling for a rent strike in Warsaw. It was a local demonstration around the Praga neighbourhood which stopped in front of different buildings which experienced problems and where tenants organized and are fighting back. Among the problems are reprivatization, dangerous physical state of the building and problems with landlords. Some people from those buildings spoke out to the demonstration and people on the street. We also stopped in front of abandoned buildings, condemned buildings and buildings for sale.

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ZSP to Start Series of Direct Actions

Hundreds of people packed into the City Council today to participate in the extraordinary session forced by tenants. There was not enough room in the main hall so people packed into two halls outside and watched the session on big screens. People were hoping that a resolution proposed by the tenants would be passed, even though it was clear from the beginning that the ruling party was strongly against.

There was a presentation on the effects of certain aspects of the city's housing policy which was quite shocking and caused great debate. Vice-President Jakubiak, whose office was occupied and tenants tried to recall last year, responded to the presentation and was treated with intense heckling and shouting from the audience. The session lasted until 22:30, when councilpeople, trying to cut the whole thing short, got to the voting. It was clear from the beginning of the session that the politicians would not vote on the resolution since the city sent their lawyer to give a negative legal opinion on it. In the end, the council voted that the President of the City should call a group of "experts" to consult with her on the housing issue.

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PO tries to ignore tenants - but we fought back!

On Sept. 30, a special session of the city council will be held to vote on the future form of cooperation with tenants. Tenants demand that they be included in the decision making process in municipal housing and have prepared a bill. The council was forced, due to consistent protests, to hold the voting session. But it is clear that the leading party, PO, is vehemently against anything that may impede their plans to destroy public housing.

Politicians from this party have already expressed their negative opinion of this bill. ZSP is calling for a rent strike and direct actions, in particular against the members of this party before elections. It has also published some hints about legal loopholes that tenants can use to avoid evictions. Some politicians from PO, who are currently in charge of offices such as housing, responded by trying to play a trick.

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Tenants Demand Session or Will Take Action

Today is the tenants' deadline to the City Council to call a special session to vote on a resolution submitted by a coalition of 30 groups. The Tenants' Defense Committee is one of the founders of this coalition and is encouraging people to form newgroups in their houses, streets and neighbourhoods. Needless to say, if the session is not held on September 30, tenants will start occupations and blocking the city council.

ZSP has called for a rent strike and series of actions starting Oct. 1. If the City Council does not publically announce the Sept. 30 session by 17:00 today, ZSP will answer with direct action against the politicians.

The media has been warning that this time the fight will be harder than before since the situation of tenants is worsening.

See video from TVN (in Polish) Read more!

Another One Bites the Dust

September. The politicians come back to work, sessions start up again and so do the protests. But somebody was oddly missing at work and, as it turns out, was discretely recalled from his post. Vice Mayor Majewski, the famous anarchist-baiting, Libcom reading, tenant bashing politician we motioned to recall after scandals related to a housing struggle this winter was, in fact finally voted out. 

This is the umpteenth politician or administrator to be ousted in relation to our protests and this is the highest-ranking official yet to lose his job. Earlier motions to recall the Vice President and the Chairwoman of the City Council did not pass, although they were submitted and actually voted on.

For those who can be Polish, we recommend the film of negotiations with Majewski which shows how he failed to deal with the tenants' problems.

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More on the Rent Strike, Days of Protest and Politicians before Elections

More and more banners and posters supporting the rent strike can be seen around Warsaw. Even banners left in public places have not been taken down and posters are being put up by residents in their houses. We know that public administration buildings have also been postered over the weekend.

On September 30, several hundred people are expected to go to the City Council to demand changes to the city housing policy.
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ZSP Starts Rent Strike Action

ZSP Warsaw is calling for a rent strike starting on Oct. 1. The strike is meant as a protest against the housing policy of the city and against serious problems with the reprivatization process in Poland. It is meant as a means of radicalizing tenants' protest, which the local politicians try to ignore. It aims to bring together tenants who face eviction or live in dangerous and substandard housing to organize for their own mutual self-defense. The strike will be accompanied by public meetings, assemblies and hopefully the creation of neighbourhood committees.
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Historic Victory for Tenants!!!!

The Tenants Defense Committee managed to stop the privatization of one house on Targowa St. in Warsaw. This is an historic moment: as far as we know, this is the first privatization in Poland that has been successfully stopped by protest!

In addition, the city has agreed to recommunalize part of the building which was under claim. This means that the entire property (which consists of several buildings) will remain municipal housing!

The Committee is currently fighting a couple of privatization attepts. It is common in Poland that extensive fraud is committed during reprivatization and that there is no independant process of verifying claims and documents.

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Tenants Action in City Council

A couple of weeks ago, tenants blocked Warsaw City Council, demanding special session devoted to housing problem. This session took place April 8. Over 200 people came to session. Members of ZSP in Warsaw are in Tenants Defense Committe and prepared large report on administrative corruption and violation of rights of tenants and housing laws. Our comrade from ZSP spoke a long time on this subject with expose of problems and made demand that housing be out of control of politicians and into more direct control of people with transparency, accountability and recallability.

TV Interviews (in Polish) Read more!

Huge Victory for Tenants Group

There was a huge victory for the Tenants Defense Committee. At the end of last year, we caught the Ministry of the Economy trying to sneak through legistlation that would be extremely unfavourable for tenants. The legislation would have allowed landlords to be able to raise rents every month and would have facilitated eviction and other means of forcing people out of public housing.

The legal analysis and social assessment we prepared was introduced in Parliament for discussion and protests were sent. We are happy to say that the bill is now dead and politicians have openly stated that it is because of what we prepared.

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Tenants Take over City Council

Today a couple of tenants groups (WSL, KSS, KOL) managed to take over the City Council and force them to call a special session devoted only to the question of housing and to discussing the tenants' postulates. This was a good example of direct action, as the tenants refused to let the council meet on anything else; some eventually took to the presidium where there was heated debate with the Chair and other politicians, including the Vice President.

One interesting thing was the reaction of municipals guards. Already the last two session were interrupted by KOL (Tenants' Defense Committee, which members of ZSP are part of) and the guards did not react. This time, the Chair of the Council asked them to "make order" which us, but all they did was come and try to talk and ask not to keep disrupting. We said "we aren't leaving and take over until our demand is met" and officers then went away and made no attempts to remove people, despite appeals of politicians.

KOL submitted an agenda of postulates for the special session which tenants forced to city to hold. Only question now is what concessions they will give tenants. Members of ZSP and KOL will push for maximum demands, including handing over supervision of public housing to citizens. Of course most radicals demands are not likely to be met, but tenants today feel they are in a good position to force at least some of their points.

This is the second such action KOL has taken part in this week. Read more!

Head of City Council Greets Tenants

For the first time in approximately 10 months protesting at the City Council, the head of the council handed over her duties to another person to meet with a group of tenants and members of the Tenants' Defense Committee. Of course we were not too impressed by the gesture. Either she got worn down from the protests or her party finally decided that they must try to deal with the problem following announcement of the motion to dismiss the Mayor.


The head of the City Council also faced such a motion a few months ago but was not recalled from her duties since the leftists are in a coalition with the neo-liberals in Warsaw.



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Tenants Take Over City Meeting

Members of the Tenants' Defense Committee and residents of three apartment blocks fighting with local politicians and a corrupt housing administration found out about a meeting of a committee which was to be dedicated to their case. The meeting was scheduled just before the council session in downtown Warsaw. So about 40 people showed up and demanded that the council deal with their problems immediately.  Fearing possible action by the tenants, the politicians changed the agenda of the council session and the situation of the tenants was discussed for hours.


Although the behaviour of the head of the housing administration and some politicians ranged from scandalous lies to pretending not to be able to do anything, others were sympathic. A member of Parliament came to argue on behalf of the tenants. A few concrete demands were met, but others not yet; tenants are waiting on some studies and decisions.


As a result of these protests, some politicians have called for the dismissal of both the head of the housing authority and the Mayor. A vote to recall the Mayor will be held at the next council session but it is not likely to pass. Still, a clear message was sent that people cannot be treated like trash by the administration.



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Protest at City Council

Members of ZSP and the Tenants' Defense Committe were back at the City Council. This time the protest, which included interruption of the session with a speech and list of demands, was not prevented by security or the politicians. The visit was related to rescinding one of the prior decisions of the City Council - not to give replacement housing to public housing residents in so-called "social housing" (for the very poorest) or to public housing tenants without permanent contracts or with debts - even if there is a serious threat to life.  We demanded that the matter be discussed at the next session and the councilpeople agreed. It is not clear however how they intend to hold this discussion or if they are just trying to buy time. Tenants who came to the council want to force it to change the policy on this matter.
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