News / easton
Huge community turnout prevents family from being evicted
A campaign group has successfully averted the eviction of a mother and her two young children onto the streets after staging a human protective bubble around their house.
There was an unprecedented turnout of more than 50 people after a last-minute emergency callout to defend Ruth and her family from an eviction notice served by a private debt collection company yesterday.
The resistance to the eviction was organised by ACORN Bristol, a campaign group and union for communities established in 2014 to tackle social issues such as evictions and homelessness.
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Ruby Burgess from ACORN said: “We don’t want this family to become homeless over Christmas, so we are here to peacefully resist the eviction and get the bailiffs to leave”.
According to her, an unannounced eviction had already been attempted last month, evident from the still visible damage inflicted to the front door of the home on Robertson Road in Easton.
Handmade posters displayed in the windows of the house on Robertson Road – photo: Betty Woolerton
Aidan Cassidy, a national organiser for ACORN, told Bristol24/7 that he believes that the homeowner was in debt due to contentions over council tax and housing benefit payments.
However, Burgess explained that ACORN remain impartial to the legal circumstances, and their aim is rather to “just resist the eviction and to buy them some time to make sure they don’t end up homeless”
She pointed to the deepening housing and homeless crisis crisis, saying that one in 200 people are homeless “and we are here to make sure we don’t add to that number”.
Dayne Griffiths sketched the scene while clusters of people waited for the arrival of debt collectors – photo: Betty Woolerton
While dozens of members of ACORN were situated at the front and behind the property, some were also strategically placed on nearby roads to act as lookouts for signs of bailiffs.
By 2.00pm, two hours after they were supposed to arrive and with whispers that the bailiffs had “seen us and scarpered”, it became clear that the resistance had deterred the debt collectors and the threat of eviction through their actions.
The national branch of ACORN tweeted that the successful afternoon proved as a “great display of community action and solidarity in Bristol”.
Main photo: Betty Woolerton
Read more: ACORN protest against ‘uninhabitable’ renting conditions provided by one Bristol letting agent
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