Upper right: "Building to be renovated"; Left: "Where's the renovation?"; Bottom right: "People without homes, homes without people"
"Private property, entrance forbidden"
"Enough with the high rents!"
"A safe haven for your capital"
"Housing is a right, not a commodity"
Above: "Stone and what" read together means "tenement apartment"; Below: "Private property, entrance forbidden"
"Empty homes in the hands of imagination!"
There are over 300 empty buildings and somewhere between 4,000 to 9,000 individual empty flats in Warsaw.* They are so ubiquitous that many residents pass by them each day without a thought, as if empty homes were a natural part of the topography of a vibrant modern city.
The capital of Poland is often regarded as a dynamic city of progress and prosperity, a symbol of Polish society’s successful transition from an authoritarian planned economy to a democratic free market. But are thousands of empty flats really a sign of a prosperous and democratic city?
Inflation, speculation, gentrification, soaring rents, and lack of accessible social housing, all lead to a situation where a fundamental human need, a roof over one’s head, is becoming increasingly scarce and out of reach for many people, particularly younger generations.
The crisis inherent in the topography of Warsaw calls on society to consider what exactly a home should be. Commodity? Or a human right?