Homeless Survival Struggles
Over the years, Red Braid has organized nearly a dozen tent cities in as many communities. We believe tent cities have a dual character – as survival spaces in a dangerous world where homeless people have half the average life expectancy of the general Canadian population, and also as spaces of political transformation where homeless working class and Indigenous people can realize their collective political agency. Out of these spaces, political leaders emerge with visions that transcend their immediate conditions. In 2019, our years of organizing alongside unhoused leaders crystallized in the formation of the June 8th Poor People’s Network, which stretches throughout British Columbia, uniting poor people’s struggles and making revolutionary politics relevant to unhoused people.
Updates and Events
Hothouse Squat Founding Declaration
#SQUAT2SURVIVE COVID-19! Unhoused and underhoused communities seize the vacant North Surrey Recreation Centre in Surrey Centre to create and fight for homes safer than the streets, shelters, and modular housing that are becoming COVID-19 hothouses
Breaking: Hothouse Squat launches in Surrey Centre!
On April 1st, homeless activists launched the Hothouse Squat. They call for for poor and homeless communities all over the province to take over vacant buildings as part of the #SQUAT2SURVIVE movement, in an act of militant self-defense from COVID-19.
#Squat2Survive! Homeless communities organize to escape COVID-19 hothouses
You can't self-isolate in shelters, SROs, modular housing, or on the streets. By taking over vacant buildings, we can immediately shelter ourselves from the many threats of poverty – of which COVID-19 is just one. Support poor and homeless communities to #Squat2Survive!
Isolate how? COVID-19 means unite and fight!
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Red Braid is distributing information, offering resources, and organizing poor and homeless communities. We encourage others to download, adapt, and distribute the flyer in their own communities.
Surrey RCMP and Bylaw seize homeless people’s belongings
Five homeless people lost their belongings when police and bylaw officers raided their tents this morning. “They left us with nothing but the clothes on our backs,” said one of the victims of the raid.
“Help us keep each other safe”: Sanctuary Tent City calls for talks with Surrey Fire Chief
Tent city residents worry that the City of Surrey will use "fire safety" concerns to justify displacement, which would ultimately undermine campers' safety.