I’ve helped folk live in squatted office buildings (as I know how to deal with three phase leccy without setting fires or blowing things up, and have other building maintenance skills), also round here some companies have used them to house staff from foreign nations (and got in trouble for doing so!)
the wider problem is that most office buildings are not correctly specified to be habitable for people (especially young familes with kids) without a lot of extra and expensive building work. You could perhaps train some of the people to do the work, but even then it has to be correct for regulations and TBH if it wasn’t corners would be cut and the people would end up in a unsafe building. after all many social housing is a genuine health and safety nightmare and the maintenance workers often think the tenants are scum (I’ve seen them whining about it on DIY forums) and don’t give a shit.
ironically the coalition have said they are encouraging easier bulding planning apps, but another risk especially with this lot in power is that the homeless get used as a cheap labour source to do up the buildings and are then kicked out when higher rent residents arrive..
it might be possible for a intentional community to pool resources and put in an offer to rent/buy a building (people are trying it here) but probably not at London property prices. I personally think the Councils should buy some but other folk would refuse to pay the Council Tax for this..
