VIEW magazine - issue 62, 2022 - social affairs publication for Northern Ireland

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VIEW

An independent social affairs magazine

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Issue 62, 2022

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THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME – IF YOU CAN GET ONE TO LIVE IN

VIEW, Issue 62, 2022

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CONTENTS VIEW MAGAZINE – A social affairs publication with in-depth reporting and analysis Housing vision

Guest editor Agustina Martire tells how social housing in Belfast has been repeating flawed patterns of occupation and density for decades Pages four and five

Key part of strategy Deirdre Hargey, Minister of the Department for Communities, talks about her ambitious plans in her housing strategy for Northern Ireland Pages six and seven

On target to deliver Darragh O’Brien, Minister for Housing in the Irish government, tells VIEW that he will deliver on his plans for more affordable housing Pages 22 and 23 ‘Housing for All’ failing Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Fein housing spokesperson in the Republic of Ireland, says that the Irish Government’s ‘Housing for All’ strategy is failing to deliver Pages 24 and 25

Radical solutions Dr Conor McCabe argues that radical solutions are needed if we are to tackle the shortage of affordable housing in the Republic of Ireland Page 26

Reviving Sailortown Campaigner Terry McKeown tells why she is passionate about helping to revive a community spirit in Belfast’s Sailortown Page 29

THE BIG PICTURE Marissa McMahon, housing campaigner and a worker in the human rights organisation Participation and Practice of Rights (PPR), tells why she is fighting for social housing to be built on the former Mackies site in west Belfast – pages 10 and 11

CONTACT US Making a complaint to VIEWdigital – https://viewdigital.org/social-affairs-magazineteam/

Editor Brian Pelan – brianpelan@viewdigital.org Deputy editor Kathryn Johnston – kathrynjohnston@viewdigital.org Publisher Una Murphy – unamurphy@viewdigital.org

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VIEWpoint

By VIEW editor Brian Pelan hhhh

VIEW

An independent social affairs magazine

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Issue 62, 2022

VIEW

£9.99

An independent social affairs magazine

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p www.viewdigital.org

Issue 52, 2019

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An Independent Social Affairs Magazine

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Issue 44, 2017

CRISIS

Issue 35, 2016

Is Vienna model the answer to Ireland’s housing crisis?

have been looking at the issue of housing on the island of Ireland and in Britain for the last three months. Some of the key things I have learnt are: • The Northern Ireland Housing Statistics 2020-21 state that some 43,971 people were on the Northern Ireland Housing Executive waiting list as of March 31, 2021.

• Approximately 60,000 households are on local authority housing waiting lists in the Republic, but a similar and growing number are in receipt of a Housing Assisted Payment (HAP) in the private rented sector, meaning the more accurate estimate for households with a housing need may be closer to 122,000, according to a recent report from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).

• One in five people in the Republic, aged between 45 and 54, who are now renting have little prospect of ever owning a home, a new study from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has shown.

• While an older generation of working and lower-middle-class people in the United Kingdom gained their first big asset after buying their council homes in the 1980s, millions of mostly younger people have now been forced into insecure, privately-rented accommodation.

• In 1979, there were 6.5 million council homes in Britain; now there are 2.2 million, while 4.4 million households rent privately, twice as many as 15 years ago.

• The number of struggling social housing tenants being evicted from their homes over non-payment of rent has risen in Scotland.

All of these issues point to a glaring need for the urgent provision of public housing.

In Northern Ireland, Deirdre Hargey,

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Across the UK three million working families are just one paycheck away from losing their home Supported by Simon Community NI and Choice Housing

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This is now the fifth time, since VIEW was established in 2012, that we have looked at housing and homelessness.

The picture has become grimmer every time it is examined the Minister of the Department for Communities, has backed a housing strategy which aims to deliver more than 100,000 homes by 2037. But without a functioning Executive and an agreed budget this surely remains only an aspiration.

(Read our interview with Minister Hargey on pages six and seven.)

Meanwhile Darragh O’Brien, the housing minister in the Republic

See story on pages 14-15 Report: Ciara Lawn Image: Hannah Mitchell

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(interviewed on pages 22 and 23) claims the Irish government’s ‘Housing for All’ strategy will deliver despite critics arguing that it is failing to meet its targets.

One such critic is Dr Conor McCabe who argues in his comment piece on page 26: “The ‘Housing for All’ document will do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis in Ireland because it is focused on protecting rates of profitability and not rates of affordability.”

The final words of journalist Vicky Spratt in her new book ‘Tenants – The People on the Frontline of Britain Housing Emergency’ (reviewed by journalist Una Murphy on page 21) are worth quoting: “Home is where everything begins. It is where our personal relationships stem from. It is the base from which we engage with society, with our community. If we start to treat housing as what it is – essential infrastructure – and fix the housing crisis, we will find that other social and economic issues shift, too. But until we do, let’s be clear, there is no economic or political reason, no philosophical or ideological justification for how people are being forced to live in Britain right now.”

This is now the fifth time, since VIEW was established in 2012, that we have looked at housing and homelessness. The picture has become grimmer every time it is examined. It appears to me that unless we have a working-class led housing movement across the island of Ireland and Britain, which demands the provision of public housing, then the speculators, the private investors, and those in power who are ideologically opposed to public housing, will continue to inflict misery as they pursue profits.

Finally, I would like to thank all those who contributed to this issue, especially the organisations that sponsored this edition.

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VIEW, an independent social affairs magazine

Offering a radical vision for social housing in Belfast

By guest editor Agustina Martire, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Queen’s University Belfast y the end of March 2021, there were nearly 44,000 households on the social housing waiting list in Northern Ireland, and more than 6,000 of them in Belfast. There are over 80 hectares of vacant land in Belfast in public ownership, with some of that land quickly falling into developers hands. It might look as if this is exclusively a problem of government policies relating to the housing infrastructure and economy. But this is also in the remit of architects, planners and designers, as it relates to the physical development of the places we live in, and those are designed and regulated by professionals and officers in these disciplines.

Social housing in Belfast has been repeating flawed patterns of occupation and density for decades, and these need to be questioned. If the ambition of Belfast City Council of bringing 66,000 more people to the inner city is to be fulfilled, there needs to be a careful spatial strategy for it, one that is fair to all citizens and is connected, healthy and comfortable. The privatisation of public land and the current patterns of density do not contribute to these aims. Some recent examples of privatisation or reallocation of public land include: 1 - social housing replaced by student accommodation in Little Donegall Street; 2 - PSNI land on Ormeau Road, where social housing was replaced by a build-to-rent apartment building; and 3 - the Mackies site, 13 hectares of DfC land handed to Belfast City Council for the development of a greenway.

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Social housing in Belfast has been repeating flawed patterns of occupation and density for decades, and these need to be questioned While the greenway only occupies about eight hectares (which is already larger than needed), the purpose of the remaining five hectares is not being discussed. Build-to-rent tenure, student accommodation and a greenway without connections to neighbourhoods do not serve the purposes of a more equitable distribution of housing, while

these plots of land could be very well suited for mixed tenure housing and mixed use ground floors.

In terms of housing density, the problems are self-evident. Private and public housing is developed either too high or too far from the city centre. High-rise, high-density housing such as those included in Tribeca Belfast, Titanic Quarter and Sirocco Waterside propose high-rise, one-and-two-bedroom private apartments, with separate social housing tower blocks on the edge or outside their red line.

All these projects promise to provide housing in the city but once you look at the detail, they do not align with the Belfast Agenda, LDP, or the call for evidence for the Housing Strategy, as they do not provide genuine mixed use, mixed tenure or a public participation plan. The developments are all too large, too tall and do not guarantee to provide the network of services needed by people moving into a new area. These projects promise to deliver 20 per cent social and affordable housing, but the definition of affordability is not agreed upon, which could mean leaving many potential residents out of the system.

On the other end, private and social detached and semi-detached cul-de-sac low-density housing sprawls predominate in the periphery of the city. Private housing such as Castlereagh by Turley’s for 322 homes, Gainsborough Drive by TSA planning for 28 homes, and social housing such as Mill Race by Eglinton developments for 150 social homes,Visteon by Radius housing for 196 social and 48 affordable

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Aisling Madden: Gentle Density proposal for Sailortown, Belfast. Master in Architecture Thesis, 2020

homes, or Fort Green by Radius Housing affordable and social housing scheme, all have a series of problems in common: they are exclusively housing, with no services included in the development; they are low density, therefore more difficult and expensive to heat and cool; they are poorly connected to the city centre, forcing unnecessary use of private cars; and they perpetuate a density model that is obsolete and discarded in most of the world today.

So how do we deal with these problems of excessively high and low density? Gentle density can be a sound and sustainable alternative as it encompasses four qualities: mid-rise, mixed-use, mixedtenure and public participation.

Gentle density proposes a mid-rise scale appropriate to the local neighbourhood, which in Belfast could be between two and five storeys. Gentle density follows a process that prevents displacement of people and avoids demolition of existing housing stock by

building on vacant and left over sites. The concept is increasingly used by urban designers, including groups such as Create Streets and Strong Towns.

Within the StreetSpace Project, gentle density also encompassess a mix of tenures, to ensure social diversity. Mixed tenure and affordability are important to sustain diversity in urban neighbourhoods.

Social, council and public housing combined with private housing and cooperative housing tend to provide more inclusive environments.

Research consistently shows that neighbourhoods with a greater variety of housing types and residential density have a greater quality of homes that are affordable to low-income renters (Aurand 2010).

A mix of uses is also essential, to avoid zoning that prevents active travel and damages the environment. Mixed-use areas can provide much easier access to services than those less dense (Bramley et al 2009).

Retail and services near workplaces can

facilitate more active travel, while densely built areas are more adaptable than singleuse, low-density ones (Porta and Romice 2017). Mixed-use, especially the combination of housing, retail, health, education and light industry has proven to do well in terms of both climate and social sustainability, encouraging social mix, fewer car journeys and more resilient communities.

For more than 20 years, public participation in the UK has been in the agenda of housing provision, both public and private realms, and this should be explored further with more creative ways of participation such as co-design, which has proven successful in Northern Europe and is now being implemented throughout the continent.

Gentle density deserves further studying and testing. This type of housing development has proved to be a more sustainable model of housing development across the world.

Is it time to try it in Belfast?

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Northern Ireland Housing Minister Deirdre Hargey

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A key part of our strategy is to get the Housing Executive to build again VIEW editor Brian Pelan asks Sinn Féin minister Deirdre Hargey if her pledge to build over 100,000 homes by 2037 can work without a functioning Executive number of emails were sent to the press team at the Department for Communities as I sought an interview with the Sinn Féin Minister Deirdre Hargey for this housing edition of VIEW magazine.

Eventually after back and forth correspondence (a bit like a Northern Ireland version of a bad tennis match) I was granted 10 minutes to ask my questions. I would have prefered a longer interview but I was told the Minister was extremely busy.

I started off by asking Ms Hargey could her NI Housing Supply Strategy and the pledge to deliver over 100,000 homes by 2037 actually deliver without a functioning Northern Ireland Executive?

“Ideally we would want the Executive to approve the strategy,” replied the Minister. “From the outset, what the strategy aims to do is adopt a whole

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system approach. So the building of housing just doesn’t rest within the Department for Communities who has responsibility, it crosses a number of government departments around infrastructure, for example, and even stretches into local government as well as around land.

“We do want to adopt a whole system approach. And ideally, we want a functioning Executive, I want to take the strategy to the Executive to be endorsed. I obviously want a dedicated, stand-alone housing outcome in the Programme for Government as well.

“Notwithstanding that, in the absence of an Executive, we are obviously finalising the strategy. We're finalising the numbers, particularly around the amount of social homes that we want to deliver in the lifetime of the strategy. And what we want to do next is to look at action plans in

terms of breaking the strategy down over manageable years. So looking at this in three-year stages, and to develop action plans that will be needed over those phases. We will be progressing with that work. Ideally we want a functioning Executive and we want to get the budget.

We want to have that certainty and particularly to get into three-year budget cycles that give that certainty, not just to the department, but to the housing family more generally, as well as the Housing Executive, so that we can start to really plan that out in the time ahead.”

I had a few follow-up queries in my head to that response from the Minister, but the clock was ticking and I had to move quickly onto my next question.

Do you support the building of social housing at the site of the former Mackies site in west Belfast, I asked Ms Hargey?

“I would look at any sites coming

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forward in terms of the development of social homes, particularly in areas where they’re needed,” she said.

“This is part of what the housing strategy is about. It’s working with local government who are working with local communities and engaging with them. It’s working with people who actually need a home.”

I asked the Minister to confirm that she was not opposed to social housing being built on the former Mackies site.

“No,” she replied. “There have been no plans that have come forward. I will always be open to looking at sites that come forward.”

The NI Housing Supply Strategy says it will help the Housing Executive to improve and look after its homes. Do you believe that the Housing Executive

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should start building more homes again and should it be allowed to be dependent on open market borrowing or should it remain in public hands?

I asked.

“We’re in the middle of a rethinking of the Housing Executive,” said Ms Hargey. “I fully support the Housing Executive. I believe that it should be a public body in terms of the ownership being public. I also recognise that they are in huge difficulties in terms of the stock that they have and not having the finances to upgrade that stock. There’s a huge investment that is going to be needed. Part of the revitalisation is to look at the governance of the Housing Executive whilst keeping it as a public body.

“And the big issue is allowing it to have the ability to borrow, similar to local

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councils. And that’s something that we’re looking at. I’m hoping that we’re almost nearly finalising that work. A key part of our strategy is to get the Housing Executive to build again.”

My final question to the Minister as my alloted time was close to running out, was to ask her if she would support an immediate ban on all evictions to stop the increase in homelessness in Northern Ireland.

“Well, we did bring forward protections in terms of the Covid pandemic.That was obviously during a public health emergency. I continue to keep that under review in terms of looking at all options,” replied the minister.

I had exceeded my 10-minute slot by three minutes and 27 seconds.

Our interview was over.

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‘’

Tenants should be allowed to vote on housing body role VIEW editor Brian Pelan talks to Professor Stewart Smyth, Chair in Accounting at Sheffield University Management School and president of the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA), about his views on the future direction of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive rofessor Stewart Smyth is the author of a report for the trade union NIPSA, titled ‘Spectre of Privatisation: The future of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive’.

In his introduction to the report, (published on May 23 this year), Prof Smyth wrote: “It is now over a year since Minister Ní Chuilín announced her ambition to revitalise the Housing Executive.Yet over 12 months later we are still no clearer about how this ambition will be achieved.

The November 2020 announcement was presented with an accompanying fanfare but it is now apparent that beyond a vague idea about reclassifying the NI Housing Executive (NIHE) as a mutual or cooperative, there was no detailed work done. This means the difficult, thorny issues around the NIHE such as allowing it to borrow again and funding the backlog of repairs and maintenance, never mind a programme of new builds, remains unaddressed.”

Prof Smyth goes on to say: “The November 2020 statement on housing policy contained many positive aspirations for both the private rented sector and social housing. However, it was the focus on revitalising the Housing Executive that received most attention. In general, MLAs and many housing professionals welcomed the proposal to change the NIHE from a public body to a mutual/cooperative model. In the process the NIHE would be reclassified, according to Westminster government accounting rules, as a private sector body. This reclassification would then allow the NIHE to borrow private funds without any restrictions or impact on government borrowing calculations.

“Despite the widespread (initial) support from other political parties, concerns were raised by NIPSA and some

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Professor Stewart Smyth politicians that the proposal amounts to ‘privatisation in a fancy wrapper’.”

In a wide-ranging online interview with the professor, I asked him are the views of Housing Executive tenants being heard in relation to whether the NIHE should adopt a private role or remain as a public body?

Prof Smyth replied: “As far as we know, and when we’ve tested public opinion on this, tenants don’t want the Housing Executive changed.

“The Housing Executive had a small stock transfer scheme (in 2013) under former Housing Minister Nelson McCausland. There were 2,000 NIHE homes involved in it. Two housing estates went as far as having a tenant ballot on whether or not to become a housing association. The tenants voted overwhelmingly to remain with the Housing Executive.

“Campaigners and trade unionists from NIPSA talked to tenants before the ballot and said: ‘You are going to get a lot

of spin and glossy brochures, but what it will mean in practice is that your rents are going to go up.

“And we have the evidence of that, where they did those very early stock transfers in Bloomfield, Bangor, and the Rinmore estate in the Creggan in Derry.

Rents went up by more than 20 per cent when they were transferred over. The point that I’m making is that the future is not yet written. It depends upon the pressure that is able to be put upon the politicians and ministers to keep the Housing Executive in the public sector.

Campaigning around this kind of stuff does work.”

I asked the professor should tenants be allowed a vote on the future direction of the NIHE? Mr Smyth replied: “Absolutely. We’ve said this in some of the earlier NIPSA reports. Whenever this has happened in Britain there has been votes by the tenants. The legal position is that the minister needs to be assured that the tenants are in favour of it.

We’ve had the precedent with the two housing estates in Northern Ireland who voted against leaving the Housing Executive.

“If there is a proposal that develops that’s going to change the landlord, so it’s going to go from the Housing Executive in the public sector through to a community mutual or cooperative, that’s a change in the landlord. So the tenants need to have the right to have a vote.”

Prof Smyth also wrote in the report for NIPSA: “Once the NIHE is reclassified it will be set upon a path that is haunted by the spectre of privatisation.”

• The Spectre of Privatisation: The future of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive – https://bit.ly/3aK8KIT

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Take Back The City campaigners at the former Mackies site in west Belfast

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It seems that some politicians at Belfast City Hall are planning for a segregated city for the next 100 years he recent decision by Belfast City Council to approve plans for a public greenway at the former Mackies site in west Belfast was the latest chapter in an ongoing campaign for social housing to be built in the area.

Campaigners, who argued that the old Mackies site should be used for both social housing and a new greenway, told a recent Planning Committee meeting in City Hall that the plan for the area was “undemocratic”.

However, councillors on the Planning Committee voted for a new parkland, namely section two of the Forth Meadow Community Greenway scheme, including foot and cycle pathways, lighting columns, new entrances and street furniture.

Seven votes were in favour from Sinn

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Féin, the DUP, and the PUP, one vote was against the plan from People Before Profit, and two abstentions came from the Alliance Party.

Objections came from Participation and the Practice of Rights, the Take Back Our City Coalition, and the Town and Country Planning Association.

Campaigners have described the decision in favour as a vote to block housing on the site, which is owned by the Department of Communities.

“We’re very disappointed in Belfast City Council,” said Marissa McMahon from PPR. “It was an opportunity for politicians, many of whom are in parties who support homes on Mackies, to back a vision for a new Belfast.

“Since the previous plan was quashed

in court, council officials have basically polished it and presented it back again for approval at record speed. They are rezoning a massive site for a small path which makes no sense in an area of chronic housing need.

“Throughout the process we have been obstructed and excluded. We are unaware of the position of the EU, the Irish government, the Department for Infrastructure and the Department for Communities who are funding this plan.

“It seems that some politicians at Belfast City Hall are planning for a segregated city for the next 100 years. That politics can’t last and communities who are suffering a housing, climate and cost of living crisis, simply can’t accept business as usual at City Hall.’’

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‘Activism is not something you do, it’s who you are’

Housing struggle: Campaigner Marissa McMahon

Belfast woman Marissa McMahon, who has been an organiser with Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) for the last five years, comes across as totally passionate about the provision of social housing for those in need.

“I first meet PPR when they literally rapped on my door in 2009,” said Marissa.

“I was living at the time with my new-born daughter in the Seven Towers block in the New Lodge in north Belfast.

“The housing conditions where I lived were very poor. PPR were carrying out a survey which asked questions about how happy the residents were. I then became a campaign member for them.

“I also became aware that too many housing developments were lacking in basic infrastructure.”

Marissa is a huge supporter of the PPR and Take Back the City coalition which has campaigned relentlessly for social housing to be built on the former Mackies site in west Belfast.

She said that 49 MLAs have backed their demand for housing, including members from the Green Party, People Before Profit and Sinn Féin.

“There are 2,854 children who are recognised as homeless in inner, middle and outer west Belfast,” added Marissa.

The majority of these children are from predominately Catholic areas.

“We believe that there could be up to 952 low-density housing units built in the area of the former Mackies site,” said Marissa. “My question to Minister Deirdre Hargey from the Department of Communities is: If you don’t build them on the former Mackies site, then where will you build them in an area of the highest need in the whole of the six counties?

“This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff, it can be done. We also believe that a new greenway can be accommodated alongside the social housing.”

Marissa said whatever happens she remains committed to social activism.

“There are so many people who I now know who are totally invested in this fight for housing.”

She was asked how much she has changed in her outlook since PPR first knocked on her door in 2009.

“I now know a lot more about the planning situation. The campaigning has definitely changed me as a person. Human rights activist Bernadette McAliskey once told me, ‘Activism is not something you do, it’s who you are’. She was 100 per cent right. Even if I walked away from this campaign in the morning, I would still be at all the protests such as fighting for women’s rights.”

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Everyone should have access to a decent home in a community that lets them thrive VIEW editor Brian Pelan talks to Hugh Ellis, Director of Policy at the Town and Country Planning Assocation oom interviews are now part and parcel of a journalist’s working life.

They don’t always commence with the subject answering my first question with a superb piece of dry wit.

In reply to my asking Hugh Ellis to tell me a little about himself, he replied: “I’m the Director of Policy at the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), which on the face of it looks like the most boring organisation on Earth.”

Hugh was anything but dull.

He is a great supporter of what campaigning communities in Belfast have done in partnership with the human rights organisation Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) According to literature on the TCPA’s website its “values are built on a powerful history of utopian and progressive ideas which shaped the Garden City movement and which continue to provide a rich and creative springboard for shaping the future.

Founded by Sir Ebenezer Howard in 1899 the TCPA represented a fusion of ideas about social justice, beauty in design, health and wellbeing and economic efficiency advocated by those such as John Ruskin, William Morris and Henry George.”

Hugh said: “Everyone should have access to a decent home in a community that lets them thrive. And that means that you’re trying to build the very best kind of places, regardless of people’s income. Housing conditions and housing provision and affordability have all gone the wrong way.

“I grew up near north Derbyshire coal

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field around Bolsover, which used to be the former Labour MP Dennis Skinner’s constituency. I’ve been brought in to assist the PPR ‘Take Back The City’ campaign for social housing to be built on the former Mackies site in west Belfast. It is by far the best thing I think I’ve ever done,” added Hugh.

“About two years ago we were contacted by PPR to offer some technical advice on the work they were doing.

“We’ve collaborated with them – on and off ever since – and supported PPR in getting funding to develop a vision for the Mackies site, and also supporting some of their conversations with communities.

“I also have to be careful as an outsider in terms of the politics of Belfast.

I think though that there is a general mood of wanting a non-sectarian solution to housing. But I think that PPR, as a campaign group, and the people on the ground that they have got with them, are very determined.”

I asked Hugh for his views on the discussion to allow the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to borrow private finance in order to build more homes.

“I think the question about what the Housing Executive does is a vital one,” replied Hugh. “I’m pretty agnostic about whether or not it’s private or public funds.

“In terms of housing on the former Mackies site, Housing Executive involvement in channelling funds into that site is obviously pivotal to making it happen.”

I then asked Hugh about the term

‘affordable housing’ and what did it mean to him?

“There are lots of mistakes which England has made that Northern Ireland should avoid. In England, the definition of affordable housing is 80 per cent market rent or 80 per cent of commercial sale price. That’s not affordable for anybody that I know. That’s just a nonsense. It’s a lie.

“The key tenure that is generally affordable is social rent. So you start with people’s income, you don’t start with market prices. One of the great benefits of the Mackies design is that you could have a model which delivers highly energy efficient homes, and essentially social rents.

“It’s an extraordinary thing that pre1979 half of all the homes that were built in the UK were built by public authorities, mostly for social rent. And then, post Thatcher, that provision of social housing collapsed. We’ve been in a housing crisis of one form or another ever since. It’s really not hard to see why.

“I think the state has got a strong role to provide socially rented homes, affordable homes, on the basis that people have a basic right to a decent home, which is warm, has enough space, has access to the environment and access to core services.

“The Mackies site is a defining moment for the city. The questions being asked by PPR and the Take Back The City coalition are great. Look at the possibilities for a city as extraordinary as Belfast. Why would you not want some of that stuff that’s going on across the world?”

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COMMENT

All-island strategy needed Professor Paddy Gray examines housing issues on both sides of the border in Ireland t is difficult in such a short article to draw out all of the similarities and differences in housing on both sides of the border in Ireland. But issues around housing affordability and housing supply have been of particular concern.

In the Republic there has been a chronic lack of supply particularly, but not exclusively, in urban areas such as Dublin, Cork and Galway. Both house prices and rents have risen substantially since the financial crash in 2008. According to MyHome.ie, in its Q2 2022 report, the median price for an average home is currently €320,000 up 5.3 per cent on Q1.

In Dublin it is €403,00, a rise of 3.4 per cent, and outside of Dublin an increase of 6.1 per cent to €270,000. The average price of a house in Northern Ireland is £202,325, according to the Ulster University, Quarterly House Price Index Q1 2022, and up 9.7 per cent than the equivalent period in 2021, defying predictions of a downturn caused by the pandemic.

Rent inflation has also been of concern. The standard average private rent for new tenancies across Ireland stood at €1,415 in Q4 2021 according to the RTB Rental Index whilst in Dublin it stood at €1972, and €1104 outside of Dublin.

According to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), one in three households in the private rented sector (a sector that has doubled proportionally in the past 20 years) did not have enough income after rental payments to cover a minimum standard of living expenditure.

A study published by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) in July 2021 found that more than half of Ireland’s tenants are paying more than 30 per cent of their take home pay on rent. In Dublin the figure is 64 per cent with one in five spending more than half their income on rent. The average private rent in Northern Ireland in May 2022 is around £733 per month, an increase of 8.1 per cent on the previous year, according to HomeLet, which is less than two thirds that of the Republic.

However, according to the Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), of the 130,000 households who live in the private rental sector across Northern Ireland, 50,000 pay more than 24

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per cent of their income on rent and as many as 20,000 pay more than 40 percent.

With regard to social housing both jurisdictions still have large housing waiting lists despite the efforts of Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) in the Republic and housing associations in Northern Ireland. In the Republic there are 59,247 who qualified for social housing support in November 2021, down just under 4.3 per cent from the previous year. There are (as of March 2022) 44,256 people on the social housing waiting list in Northern Ireland, with some 31,407 of these classed as ‘priority applicants’.

So how have both governments been tackling the issues highlighted above. In Northern Ireland the Department for Communities (DfC) published a Housing Supply Strategy in March of this year promising 100,000 new homes by 2037 or 6,667 a year. Propertymark, however, states that this represents a 15.5 per cent reduction in the average number of property completions over the 15 years to 2020.

Also in March 2022, the DfC announced plans for the introduction of an intermediate rent model at below market rents. New legislation was introduced for private rented sector tenants with longer term NTQs, restrictions on the frequency of rent increases, increased safety. And of course the revitalisation of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive – one of the largest housing organisations in the UK – which manages just under 85,000 homes. This will allow it to borrow the necessary funds for long-overdue investment in its existing stock as well as allowing it to resume its new build programme that ceased around 20 years ago.

The Affordable Housing Bill 2020, published in January 2021, introduced a new cost rental product defining it as a new form of tenure and will place it on a statutory footing, financed by the Cost Rental Equity Loan (CREL) scheme (DHLGH, 2020). The Republic’s Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien defined cost rental as a new form of tenure where tenants pay rent that covers the cost of delivering, managing, and maintaining the homes only.

The Housing for All Plan to 2030 was published at the end of July 2021 in response to the housing crisis to date. In it there were 213 actions to support home ownership and increase affordability; eradicate homelessness; increase new housing supply and address vacant properties. It promised to provide 33,000 new homes per year from 2021 to 2030. It also established a new Housing Commission to examine issues such as tenure, standards, sustainability and quality of life.

Newton Emerson, writing in the Irish Times on November 5, 2020, stated that on almost every measure, Northern Ireland has better housing figures than the Republic of Ireland. This may be true but there are issues around affordability and housing supply on both sides of the border.

The pandemic has already had its effects on construction although recovery on both sides of the border is optimistic.

However, building materials inflation is rising in both North and South and the availability of skilled and unskilled labour for the housing supply chain has been in shorter supply.

There are so many gains to be made by working on an all island solution to many problems that are similar despite the varying degrees of scale. I’ve called before, and do so again, for an all island housing strategy that could look at the common issues facing both populations.

There should be a formal Knowledge Exchange Body aligned to the Ministerial Council to discuss cross-border housing and planning issues. Resident engagement and good practice is another area we could share expertise. Tackling stigma in social housing; access to private money; innovative construction techniques; a common decent homes standard; assessing housing need models and sustainability reporting; social value; a house condition survey in the Republic; an all-Ireland approach to the provision of transient sites for Travellers; a radical approach to vacant dwellings; housing associations and approved housing bodies sharing ideas and good practice and staff exchanges; and importantly strengthening the voice of tenants across the island.

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SPONSORED BY THE NORTHERN IRELAND HOUSING EXECUTIVE

Looking to the future Grainia Long is the Chief Executive of the Housing Executive. In this piece for VIEW magazine, she outlines how Covid-19 has had a profound effect on people experiencing homelessness. As the organisation plans for the future, she sets out the step-changes necessary to develop the right model of provision to ensure everyone has access to a home that meets their needs or over 50 years, we have led the strategic development of local housing and provided help and support to those experiencing homelessness.

Restrictions put in place in response to Covid-19 led to soaring demand and some of that increase has led to a permanent change in how we deliver services.

It has encouraged, by necessity, greater partnerships and closer working relationships between the public and voluntary sectors and has put the voice of those experiencing homelessness more centrally in service design.

It has, quite simply, led us to reexamine our entire approach to provision.

However, what we’ve done in the past will not create the transformative change we need to ensure a sustainable and longterm model of provision.

My view is that, in partnership with public and voluntary sector organisations, we must re-design the current model for preventing and responding to homelessness and place a renewed emphasis on urgent re-housing.

Over the past four years – for a range of reasons, including the Covid-19 pandemic – levels of local homelessness have soared and current figures show no signs of this trend slowing down.

In 10 years, the waiting list for social housing has risen by around 10,000 to almost 44,000 – with a similar rise in housing stress, with around 30,000 households in this position.

Last year, 10,135 local people and families were accepted by us as homeless when they presented to our staff.

When these customers presented, the three key reasons they provided for accessing support were their

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Homelessness has been in emergency mode and budgets – not to mention front line staff – are already over-stretched accommodation was no longer reasonable, they’d experienced a breakdown in family relations, or they’d lost their rented accommodation.

Of particular concern, the rented accommodation situation saw a 46 per cent jump in demand for our services in one single year between 2021 and 2022.

A buoyant private housing market has prompted many landlords to exit the sector, releasing their properties onto the open retail market.

In turn, this has driven competitive rental market fees to higher levels as the amount of properties available to rent become fewer and fewer – and the

number of rental properties available to our organisation to access has dropped.

In 2018, 3,000 people accessed support from us due to adverse rental arrangements – in 2021 that number had trebled to more than 9,000.

Responding to this demand has led to the excessive use of costly forms of temporary accommodation – this has been employed at the expense of a holistic focus on prevention and tenancy sustainment, and is not sustainable over time.

Homelessness has been in emergency mode and budgets – not to mention front line staff – are already over-stretched.

Spending on this type of non-standard accommodation – from the overall temporary accommodation budget - has risen from 13.73 per cent in 2018 to 30.16 per cent, in 2022.

Along with our strategic partners, there has been a serious examination of the strategic shifts needed to tackle this issue.

Over the next decade, it is paramount that we reverse the current trends.

We’ve published our new five-year strategy Ending Homelessness Together, which was developed with our sectoral partners with a specific focus on homeless prevention. Whilst there has been sustained investment in new social housing in Northern Ireland – at levels which are favourable when compared with other parts of the UK – the gap between housing demand and supply is not closing fast enough. If we’re going to successfully shift trends around rising homelessness and increasing waiting lists, then we must ensure sustained levels of funding for social housing.

Housing has an economic, environmental and social mission and

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SPONSORED BY THE NORTHERN IRELAND HOUSING EXECUTIVE

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Housing has an economic, environmental and social mission and we’ve an opportunity in this decade to deliver significant change

Grainia Long, Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive

we’ve an opportunity in this decade to deliver significant change.

There must be a step-change in focus from short-term emergency responses to essential, long-term and lasting initiatives.

We must give certainty to the providers of homelessness services, ensuring we offer them longer and more stable contracts.

Keeping experienced and committed staff in the sector will boost current services and make it a more attractive place for our best and brightest to join so we can harness the imagination needed to tackle these really complex issues.

Further to the Housing Executive’s homelessness work, I’m delighted at progress made in developing a new Supporting People Strategy, which

recognises and prioritises closing the gap between demand and supply for services.

This has been a hugely successful initiative with 7,500 support interventions across 47 projects, helping the most vulnerable people in our society sustain their tenancies and remain in their homes.

The services provided through Supporting People also face continuing demands – rates of high intensity counselling, mediation and support rose from 179 in 2021 to 627 in the current year. Some 400 young people were provided with support – a 50 per cent rise year on year.

Also, other areas are being prioritised, including support for the victims and survivors of domestic violence.

Positively, we’ve witnessed an increase in organisations offering support to survivors – from three to seven – which meant those receiving support climbed to 261 people this year compared to 96 in the previous year.

Covid-19 continues to have a real and obvious impact on our work and this will remain the case for some time to come.

However, we’re committed to learn lessons from the past three years and to apply these to how we plan services for the future.

This means acting with empathy to those with complex needs, and designing services which meet their needs today and into the future – providing sustainable solutions, rather than emergency responses.

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SPONSORED BY CHOICE HOUSING

Challenging perceptions ocial housing stigma, the negative connotations attributed to people living in social housing, has existed for decades. Assumptions are made about tenants’ behaviour, financial situation and motivation because of the type of landlord they have.

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Rethinking Social Housing Northern Ireland project considered the role and purpose of social housing in 2018. The resulting report identified media stereotyping and residualisation (1) as two of the factors perpetuating the problem in Northern Ireland.

Media representation of social housing tenants in reality TV programmes has coined a new term for this genre as ‘Poverty Porn’. Programmes like Skint, Benefits Street and How to Get a Council House and news articles that focus on negative stories have moved the focus from ‘sink estates’, where the area was perceived to be crime-ridden with substandard housing, to individual tenants themselves being labelled as welfare dependent, unable or unwilling to work and involved in substance misuse and crime.

Suffering the impact of stigma contributes to people feeling ashamed about where they live and undermines the good work we do as a sector trying to build thriving and sustainable communities.

The reality of social housing is somewhat different. Almost 40 per cent of social housing tenants are aged 60 and over and almost a third are self-payers.

Housing associations manage more than 55,000 homes, and while there are a few hundred reports of anti-social behaviour per year, the majority of tenants are happy with their home and their community. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report found that good quality, low cost housing can break the link between poor housing conditions and poverty.

The last Northern Ireland House Condition Survey (NIHCS) found that 10 per cent of social housing in NI was in fuel poverty compared to 23 per cent of owner occupied and 26 per cent of private rented/other. Investment in newer stock and energy efficiency measures has had a real impact in reducing fuel poverty. A Choice tenant at Killynure recently commented: “I moved into this development when it was built and have found that I have much lower energy bills than in my previous home, probably saving around £20 per month. I would rarely have my heating on, but when I do, I find that my home heats up very quickly and stays warm. It’s easy to budget for energy as I

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Planting workshop at the Brickworks, Belfast use pre-pay cards for both gas and electricity. It’s also good to have solar panels on the roof as an alternative form of energy.”

Housing associations provide accommodation-based services to enable people to live independently including those with mental ill-health, physical, learning and sensory disabilities, and older people. Some accommodation is designed specifically for families like one of our tenants whose home was specifically adapted to meet her son’s needs. The tenant said, “moving into our new home hasn’t just ensured that my son can live a normal life like any other six-year-old, but it secures our long-term future as a family.

Before this, we were never sure if at some stage full-time residential care would have to be an option if we weren’t able to accommodate his needs at home”.

By telling the stories of our tenants

we can play our part in challenging the perceptions of social housing. That includes how we lead the way in empowering tenants, through tenant engagement, financial inclusion support, community investment activities and providing high-quality customer service (rated annually through tenant satisfaction surveys). By working together in a focused way, we can bring about a positive change enabling that sense of pride in social housing once again.

1. The process whereby social housing tenants who can afford to often choose to leave this type of tenure leaving behind the most vulnerable and those with the least resources and opportunities.

Often attributed to the ‘right to buy’ policy introduced in the 1980s.

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SPONSORED BY CHOICE HOUSING

Killynure Green, (Phase two), Carryduff

The McGillian family from Derry-Londonderry

A net-zero journey ince the inception of our energy team more than 10 years ago, Choice have delivered leading examples of energy efficiency, sustainable housing and costsavings for our tenants.

This is especially true of our previous Energy and Sustainability Strategy 20192022, whereby we delivered landmark energy efficient housing with 100 per cent of all new build properties receiving an EPC rating of Band B or above, significantly reduced our tenants’ energy bills by saving £211,881 from smart energy procurement and piloted several zero carbon technologies, including generating 1,020,000 kWh of free electricity for our tenants using our solar PV systems.

These experiences have allowed Choice to garner expertise that we will incorporate into our approach to 2025.

This will ensure we continue to take a leadership role in our sector. As we reflect on the challenges and user experiences of these projects, Choice aims to use our real world experience towards the adaptation of a low-carbon, fit-for-purpose approach to social housing to 2025.

Our new Sustainability and Energy Strategy 2022-2025 aims to build upon our past successes and further address the climate crisis. This includes a continuation of pilot programmes for new build, retrofitting existing homes and zero carbon technologies. We will address energy efficiency and carbon reduction of new and existing homes through a fabricfirst approach. This approach improves

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insulation of walls, roofs and floors to reduce heat demand.

We favour this approach as it provides us with confidence that the buildings that we operate in 30 years’ time have the necessary building efficiency to operate effectively with low carbon and renewable technologies that may not yet be available or practical. This gives us the flexibility to make the best investment decisions concerning low carbon and renewable systems when it becomes clear what the best approach is. In addition to ensuring that the fabric of our homes is efficient, Choice will install systems for heating and power that reduce consumption.

We aim to install renewable technologies in all new homes and retrofit renewable technologies to existing homes where appropriate. Such projects will be the benchmark for our next generation approach beyond 2025.

A further priority of this strategy is transforming Choice into a housing association capable of achieving net-zero by 2050. There are a considerable amount of unknowns that we will need to overcome and a significant part of the new strategy is baselining our current performance so as to understand the scale of our net-zero journey.

This will involve understanding where other environmental impacts exist and putting measures in place to minimise such impacts and, where available, take action to have a positive impact on the environment.

This will be through examination of our

supply chain and resource management to look at construction and operational emissions, transport emissions, material extraction, land and water pollution, and waste management.

Choice recognises that the climate crisis affects us all and we all have a role to play. It is critical that our plans place people in the driving seat for change.

Whether it’s our employees or our tenants, our new strategy aims to be inclusive of the contributions we can all make. We have incorporated sustainability issues into our community development in order to play our part in delivering a sustainable future for our tenants. For example, by addressing biodiversity loss amongst communities through enhanced green spaces, Choice can positively impact the mental and physical well-being of our tenants. By delivering energy-efficient homes that reduce carbon emissions we will improve tenant affordability and reduce the health impacts caused by fuel poverty. Choice otherwise refers to this as delivering a just transition to net-zero.

Being a provider of homes means that Choice is responsible for ensuring that the properties we provide meet our tenants’ expectations. In addition, we have an enormous opportunity to build resilient communities that act as a pivotal part in a thriving and vibrant society. It is critical, therefore, that Choice supports the development of these communities, for which environmental sustainability is an increasingly important issue.

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SPONSORED BY SIMON COMMUNITY NI

Simon Community NI staff, including Chief Executive Jim Dennison, outside their new central office in Belfast city centre

Simon Community NI marks its 50th year of homelessness fight rom a handful of volunteers delivering soup to rough sleepers on the streets of Belfast, Simon Community NI has come a long way since it was first established 50 years ago. Now, Northern Ireland’s leading and longest running homelessness charity supports up to 636 marginalised people each day across 27 accommodation projects and 13 specialist community support services.

Taking up the role of Chief Executive in 2014, Jim Dennison, a housing and community relations professional of over 20 years, has seen the charity in recent years adapt faster to an ever-changing homelessness crisis and meet the needs of individuals presenting with more complex issues.

He told VIEW: “Acknowledging 50 years of providing homelessness shelter and support is a massive achievement but a bittersweet milestone. After years of no financial uplift, an increase in ill-mental health and homelessness, a rise in substance usage, limited social housing building projects, Covid, and now a cost-ofliving crisis, our charity is acknowledging an anniversary whilst looking out on to a looming homelessness disaster.”

“Each year, thousands of people come through our doors at their lowest with nowhere else to turn to. Currently, on average, around 1,000 households present as homelessness to the Housing Executive each month with more than 40,000 sitting on social housing waiting lists for homes that may never come. And what’s even more worrying is that these already unmanageable figures fail to account for the estimated 100,000 households

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LOOKING BACK: ‘Save Simon’ campaign in 1976 secured its first government funding here that are likely to be victims of ‘hidden homelessness.’ This is a deeply challenging situation.”

“Already experiencing a very real homelessness crisis, I’m now worried that as Northern Ireland enters a new phase whereby people are choosing between eating or heating, where social housing is saturated, and where private renting is simply unaffordable, the homelessness sector will be unable to effectively respond to the predicted surge of more people becoming homeless in the future.”

Dennison details that the Covid pandemic, whilst a challenging and worrying time for staff and clients at the charity, acted as a catalyst that saw a rise in better partnership working and removed the constraints of bureaucracy. Keen to have the sector and stakeholders return to

this way of thinking, ahead of this year’s Assembly elections, Dennison met with representatives from across the major parties to lobby for three Programme for Government asks: One: The delivery of a Homelessness Co-operation Bill to put interdepartmental co-operation to ending homelessness on a legislative footing for the Departments for Communities, Education, Health and Justice and require them to report annually to the Assembly.

Two: The delivery of properly resourced, multi-year budgets for homelessness support services to facilitate longterm funding decisions and to allocate needs-assessed funding to flagship projects such as the Supporting People programme.

Three: Increased housing supply through a combination of public asset initiatives, refurbishing vacant properties, a fully-supported NIHE build programme, and incentivising private rented sector use.

Jim added: “While we exist, Simon Community will always be a champion for the people we directly or indirectly support.You simply need to look at the most recent figures on homeless deaths here in Northern Ireland — 217 people over 12 months dying while experiencing homelessness. If one person on our roads died every other day, there would be a huge public outcry, a media campaign, resources across departments thrown at it.

It is fighting this inequality that drives our charity, staff, and supporters.”

• Partner with Simon Community in their 50th year by visiting simoncommunity.org

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COMMENT

Funding uplift urgently needed Nicola McCrudden, Chief Executive of Homeless Connect, says that the restoration of power-sharing at Stormont is essential to tackling the worsening cost-of-living and homelessness crises or several years now, homelessness in Northern Ireland has significantly worsened. Across an array of measurements, things have been heading in the wrong direction. The Covid-19 pandemic, followed by the spiralling costof-living crisis, have exacerbated the situation, placing enormous pressure on the homelessness system.

Some statistics starkly show this reality. In 2011/12, the waiting list for social housing stood at around 34,500 households. Ten years later, this figure has risen by an additional 10,000 households.

Almost 24,000 households currently waiting for social housing have full duty applicant status, in other words are statutorily homeless.

At the Communities Committee in November 2021 the Chief Executive of the Housing Executive, Grainia Long, described the gap between the supply of social housing and the demand for it as “structural and widening”.

This lack of housing, coupled with the impact of the Covid crisis, has directly led to an increased need for temporary accommodation. In May of this year there were almost 8,500 people in temporary accommodation, a staggering 87 per cent increase in five years. Our members, who are homelessness service providers, are accommodating greater numbers of people, up 85 per cent over the same period. Meanwhile, the Housing Executive is having to place more people in “nonstandard” B&B/hotel accommodation.

Usage has almost quadrupled with around 318 people currently living in “nonstandard” accommodation.

It is important to remember that statistics represent people, who feel and care. We are hearing first hand from frontline workers about the harsh reality that people are facing. Increased anxiety

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A sudden collapse in the provision of services would be catastrophic and must be avoided at all costs from women worried about being able to feed and clothe their children, parents skipping meals and going without.

Worryingly there are more children living in temporary accommodation than before – up 75 per cent in the past five years to 3,467.

Challenges present themselves daily, as we see growing numbers of people with very complex needs, many of whom are in desperate need of mental health and/or addiction services.

Staff in the sector are incredible and continued to work throughout the pandemic to keep people safe. But it hasn’t been easy and many are struggling themselves, fatigued as we lurch into a new crisis – the cost of living. Most frontline staff are low paid, although highly-skilled workers, and are finding it hard to make ends meet.

Organisational budgets are also being squeezed by rising food prices, fuel, and

energy costs. As charities, commissioned to provide services and reliant on government funding, many are unable to offer competitive pay – in turn some staff have left for better wages in other sectors.

There is no doubt that there needs to be a major uplift in statutory funding for the sector, and for wider relief from the effects of spiralling prices.

At Homeless Connect we maintain that the restoration of power-sharing at Stormont is essential to tackling the worsening cost of living and homelessness crises.

Without a working Executive there can be no budget passed for the next three years, blocking the spending of hundreds of millions of pounds, some of which would be spent on relieving the current pressure on services, as well as preventing more individuals and households falling into housing stress and homelessness.

The homelessness sector is key to our society weathering the current crisis, and its resilience cannot be taken for granted. A sudden collapse in the provision of services would be catastrophic and must be avoided at all costs.

We at Homeless Connect commend all the great work done by everyone offering essential support to those experiencing or at risk of homelessness and will continue to be the voice of the homelessness sector throughout these difficult times.

• To find out more about Homeless Connect’s analysis and recommendations for action from the new Assembly, go to https://homelessconnect.org/cate gory/news/ae22/homelessconnect-manifesto/page/2/

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COMMENT

Why I’m optimistic about housing Justin Cartwright, National Director Northern Ireland at the Chartered Institute of Housing, welcomes the ‘new, ambitious housing supply strategy from the Department for Communities’ here is much to be optimistic about in housing right now. Despite the very real challenges, we are starting from a strong place to provide more of the homes that people need.

Northern Ireland is the only region of the UK where all its housing capital investment goes solely to social and intermediate homes. This capital finance has been increasing year on year.

Government pays around half the cost of building new social homes through grant funding, which has risen in recent years.

CIH operates internationally and this level of support for new social housing is not seen everywhere. It says to me that government here does see affordable housing as a priority. This is welcome, particularly at a time when the levels of housing need and costs are both on the rise.

The good news doesn’t end there. All political parties have signed up to our cross-sector ask for a specific housing outcome in the draft Programme for Government, which could help to unlock the funding and the support needed to take housing and homelessness prevention forward.

The Department for Communities has published a new, ambitious housing supply strategy. The strategy aims to address constraints on supply while looking ahead to net-zero emissions. The headline commitment is to build more than 100,000 new homes over 15 years, a third of which will be social homes.

This implies a new target to build more than 2,200 social homes each year. A bold target, considering we are only completing two-thirds of that number on average, and bearing in mind that supply constraints – such as a lack of water

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The focus should remain the same – to ensure everyone has a good place to call home that is appropriate for their needs infrastructure capacity – remain to be addressed. The Housing Executive says we need 2,000 new social homes annually.

Finally, there is a plan to fund the Housing Executive itself to ensure its tenants have homes fit for the future.

Enabling the landlord to borrow private finance will mean it can invest in more of its homes. At present it can only afford around half of what is needed, and that is before reaching net-zero is considered.

This is not to say we are doing enough. We are not. There are more than 31,000 households in housing stress.

Homelessness services and prevention

work is underfunded. Nimbyism frustrates the delivery of new social homes. Funding to retrofit homes for net-zero is running at a third of what it needs to be. I could go on.

Some of these issues are more intractable than others. However, we don’t have the luxury of taking decades to address them. Our obligation to achieve net-zero emissions in housing, for example, is now a legal one. Rapid change is demanded, as is the finance and strategy to get us there.

Of course, the challenges faced by housing professionals on the frontline are much broader than those outlined above, as they work to provide homes and support for sustainable, thriving communities. My deep regret is that colleagues are doing this vital work without the support of an Executive, which is, quite frankly, a disgrace.

The absence of government has helped no one, not least the people who are waiting for their housing and support needs to be met. It has meant that much of the good policy work outlined above has ground to a halt, and additional funding has evaporated. More than anything right now, the housing sector needs an environment of certainty if we are to achieve our goals.

At a recent talk I was asked whether I thought our housing problems would be fixed by the year 2050. As a society we have achieved impressive scale in housing before, and we can do it again. The landscape has changed of course, requiring us to adopt new ways of working.

But the focus should remain the same – to ensure everyone has a good place to call home that is appropriate for their needs.

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BOOK REVIEW

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To be a tenant in Britain today is to try everything in your power to hold on to your sense of security, often clutching at straws

By Una Murphy icky Spratt’s new book Tenants sets out to show “what it means to have a safe and stable home in an unstable world, whether that’s amid political and economic turmoil or, as it happened, during a once-in-a-generation public health crisis”.

In this book – the journalist and campaigner looks at private sector housing in England and Wales.Vicky is housing correspondent for the iPaper and fronted a successful bid in 2016 to end letting fees, only to see tenants charged thousands of pounds of ‘rent up front’ due to loopholes in the law.

She tells the stories of the people who rent their homes amid “the complex and opaque labyrinth that is UK housing law” and their lack of rights. “To be a tenant in Britain today is to try everything in your power to hold on to your sense of security, often clutching at straws.”

Over the past 20 years the number of people in England’s private rented sector has doubled and rent hikes are outpacing wage rises. This means that most renters struggle to save. “Unlike home owners, their place in the world becomes neither legally nor financially more stable over time.”

“There is not a single place in the UK where a single woman on an average income can afford to buy or rent a home on her own,” says Vicky Spratt, citing research by the Women’s Budget Group.

Hardest hit are those people on low or no income, who previously would have lived in social housing but increasingly people on low or middle incomes – who would once have been able to buy a home – are now also affected by the housing crisis.

In rented housing there is now a reliance by the state on private landlords for the vital provision of housing. Many of these landlords are unqualified individuals who cannot, or will not, carry out this important service well,Vicky Spratt says.

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the state that its citizens have a roof over their head as well as clean water, which are basic human rights according to the United

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Nations. A social housing shortage, inflated house prices, availability of credit for landlords and unaffordable private rents, are the factors the author identifies as leading to the precarity faced by tenants.

Change is possible, according to Vicky Spratt, who cites organisation such as ACORN, a voluntary body set up in Bristol to tackle social issues in local communities which campaigns on housing inequalities, but there must be the political will to tackle the housing crisis.

Her deep dive into housing policy over the decades to the ‘Dismantling of the Safety Net’, which characterises UK housing today, is deftly carried out with detailed personal testimonies from tenants, housing campaigners and her own family story.

Like the canary in the coalmine, state spending on housing benefit by the 2010s – because people could not afford their rent

– was an early warning system of the calamity in housing. By 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic arrived “the public health crisis exposed the fault lines of another: the housing crisis” Vicky Spratt writes.

By 2020, lost jobs and income meant more and more people were facing both a global pandemic and a housing emergency.

Many people who applied for Universal Credit, which includes housing benefit, would consider themselves middle class.

Ironically, ‘home’ become the focus of public policy with the instruction that we ‘stay-at home’ during lockdown. For those who had private landlords as their housing providers there was, in many cases, no stability and security at home, with notices to quit properties still issued during the pandemic.

Vicky Spratt identifies that the unregulated private rented sector encourages people to ‘invest’ in up-andcoming areas which leads to house price inflation and people on low or no income being forced out of these communities.

“Without another huge drive to build social housing and introduce some sort of rent regulation, this will continue to occur in a feedback loop”, she says.

According to the author: “Tenants’ unions and grassroots activists are providing urgent help and advocacy to address the symptoms of the crisis in the private rented sector, but Westminster should act to address its causes.”

There is no doubt that citizens must demand answers of elected politicians and the civil servants about why, post-Covid, with its ‘Build Back Better’ rhetoric, the basic human right of housing is still not being met.

Vicky Spratt’s Tenants articulates the problems and suggests solutions. The housing crisis must be at the top of the political agenda, so that “a safe and stable home” is a reality for all.

• Tenants: The People on the Frontline of Britain’s Housing Emergency – By Vicky Spratt.

Published by Profile Books – profilebooks.com/work/tenants/

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VIEW talks to Irish housing Question: What has the transition been like from being the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on housing to becoming the housing minister in the coalition government?

Answer: It’s over two years now since I was appointed as housing minister by the Taoiseach. It remains a great honour to do the job. When I was appointed in June 2020, we were dealing with the pandemic. The Programme for Government, which I was a part of negotiating, had many of the policies which I had been enunciating in opposition, such as affordable housing, building more social homes, and helping people to own their own homes. It takes time for some of the changes to bed down.

Q: Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson, has said the Housing For All strategy (launched last September by the coalition government) is failing to meet its targets. What is your response to that assertion by him?

A: It’s quite predictable. Eoin Ó Broin was actually criticising our housing policy about three hours after I was appointed as minister in 2020. But I’ve a job to actually make real changes for people that makes a difference. The Housing for All plan is the most ambitious housing plan that any government has ever brought forward in the Republic. It is fully funded to the tune of four billion euros per annum. Sinn Féin’s housing plan for the Republic sought expenditure of 2.8 billion euros (per annum). It’s curious that Eoin Ó Broin would criticise a plan that exceeds what he is looking for. It’s clear that our plan is taking hold and is working. Housing for All will meet its targets.

Q: The Housing Commission in the Republic has launched a public consultation on holding a housing referendum. Do we really need a referendum given that what we actually need are houses? How will holding a referendum advance the urgent need for housing?

Irish housing minister and Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien, left, who was appointed to his present role in June 2020

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minister Darragh O’Brien

Street protest: Housing protesters in Dublin A: Good question. Firstly, the Housing Commission itself was a Programme for Government commitment that we establish one, which we’ve done. It’s an eminent group of people drawn from all different stakeholders who are serving as housing commissioners.

They are also independent of me. One really significant piece of work is this referendum on housing. I do believe we should have a referendum on housing. It will help to define what the responsibilities of the state actually are and will underpin future government policy.

Q, A woman tweeted in response to the public consultation on a housing referendum: “Get rid of foreign investment. Get rid of help to buy. Build more affordable housing. Stop planning permissions for build to rent. Focus on those four, and people can afford homes again.” What would your response be to that tweet?

A: I actually saw that tweet. We are delivering affordable housing now. I want affordable housing and I want people to own their own homes. We do need private investment in housing. We also need rental properties.

Q: Where you personally hurt when President Michael D Higgins said recently that the housing situation in the Republic was “a disaster” and that the housing policy was a “great, great failure”.

A: I won’t and don’t get into a debate. I respect the custom and practice of how the Oireachtas and the Government interact with the president. We are doing a lot of what the president is saying.

He wants more investment in social housing. We are putting in four billion euros a year. We are delivering affordable and social homes. What the president wants is what I want. I respect what the president says and I listen to him

Q: There seems to be general agreement amongst the public in the Republic that rents at the moment are too high, the price of housing is too high, and people can’t afford housing. What would you say to those who argue that you have failed as housing minister?

A: It’s not about me. It’s about me delivering the change that is needed. I’ve no difficulty with criticism – constructive or otherwise. I will continue to focus on the work that I am doing.

Q: Will the number of homeless people in the State fall below 10,000 by the end of this year?

A: Homelessness for me and reducing it is the absolute number one priority. My response is housing led. I’m not going to get into predictions in the sense of what the numbers will look like at the end of the year. It’s my earnest desire to see a decrease in the numbers. I’m going to do everything I can in my power to make that come about.

Q: There have been 3,818 eviction notices issued since the Covid ban on evictions was lifted last April. Should the eviction ban be reintroduced as a way of tackling the housing crisis?

A: They were emergency measures brought in at the time of a pandemic to protect people. Housing and homelessness is an emergency – there’s no question about that. But I have to do what is legal and also respect the rights of those who own the homes.

The blanket extension of an eviction ban, I think, would have the reverse effect, It would lead to actually more landlords leaving the market and selling up. A blanket eviction ban would be actually counterproductive.

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‘Housing for All strategy is making things worse’ Eoin Ó Brion, housing spokesperson for Sinn Féin, tells VIEW editor Brian Pelan, why he believes that the coalition government is failing to deliver on meeting the needs of its citizens oin Ó Broin,TD, the Sinn Féin spokesperson on housing, did not hold back when I asked for his views on the progress of the Irish government’s Housing for All strategy – which was launched in September last year.

Our interview took place at the Sinn Féin offices in the Houses of the Oireachtas in Dublin. If many political predictions come true, Sinn Féin could be in Government after the next general election in the Republic in or before March 2025. And Eoin Ó Brion could be the new Housing Minister.

“The Housing for All strategy is making things worse,” said the Sinn Fein TD. “The second anniversary of this government has just passed and Darragh O’Brien has been the Minister for Housing for just over two years now. It took him 14 months to publish a housing plan. And even if that plan meets its targets over the next number of years – and there is a big question mark over that – we are not going to see any improvement in the number of key indicators of housing need.

“For example, over his first two years in office housing prices have continued to rise, and, in some cases, very dramatically.

“Rents have passed their Celtic Tiger peak and are continuing to rise.

“One of the hallmarks of Minister O’Brien is to make a lot of brash promises on ill-thought-out or poorly-designed schemes that actually take far longer to put in place and have very limited results. Ó Broin then turned his attention to the private rental sector. “It is shrinking dramatically,” he said. “Over the last four years the number of available properties has declined – it’s the first time this has happened for 20 odd years. Homelessness is back at pre-Covid levels. We now have 10,000 adults and children living in emergency accommodation. So on all the indicators – social housing, affordable housing, private rental housing, homelessness – things are getting worse.”

I put it to Ó Broin that if Sinn Féin were to hold the reins of power after the

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One of the hallmarks of Minister O’Brien is to make a lot of brash promises on ill thought-out or poorly designed schemes that actually take far longer to put in place and have very limited results next general election, what would they do differently?

“We have a five-year plan,” he replied.

“And obviously, depending on when the next election is, we’ll update that plan to take account of the circumstances. The first fundamental change that has to happen is that government has to double direct capital investment in the delivery of public housing.

“Direct capital investment by government at the moment in social affordable housing is just under €1.5 billion. It needs to be at least €3 billion.

That would finance 20,000 new public homes a year.

“We’ve 90,000 vacant homes across the state. And in terms of cost, speed and also meeting our climate emissions reduction targets, we have to bring those vacant homes back into use at an accelerated passage.

“We require a fundamental change to the private rental sector with some

emergency policies introduced. We need a three-year ban on rent increases.”

Does Sinn Féin have plans to set up a national house building agency instead of a reliance on private builders?

“In the first instance, what we want, particularly for those small-to-medium builders, is to tie them into a perpetual programme of public house building.

We’ve got a whole set of proposals as to how to achieve that work long term. We need houses that are employing local people. There is also a very strong case for a state construction company or state construction companies.

“They would have to compete with private contractors under EU law in terms of tendering and procurement, but because they would be operating in the public interest you could ensure adequate terms and conditions for the employees and also put manners on some of the larger building companies.”

The TD also had a swipe at Real

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Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin outside the Houses of the Oireachtas in Dublin Estate Investment Trusts (Reits) who have investments in housing in the Republic.

“They are part of the problem and not the solution,” he said.

“The great difficulty with the REIT and other investment fund models of housing delivery is it’s incredibly speculative. They have these huge arsenals of money. They pay virtually no tax. They’re able to massively outbid other prospective investors – public and private – for land, inflate the cost of development, and ultimately inflate the cost of selling or renting homes.”

Would it be a cold house for large foreign investors under a Sinn Féin government, I asked.

“It wouldn’t be a cold house,” replied Ó Broin. “What’s really important in my view is there are two different types of institutional investors. There are the institutional investors who come in, what I call short-term high-yield investors, who

speculatively invest in land. They churn out a very high-end product, but they want to sell it very quickly. And they want to sell it to what we call a long-term, low-yield investor – usually a pension fund or whatever. At the moment, in the private sector, we are getting the short-term highyield speculative investors, they’re coming in and taking the risk or buying the land and flipping it to the long term pension funds.

“The consequence of doing that is you are pushing up the development costs.

“We want half of the homes to be delivered by the public sector. The other half have to be delivered by the private sector. Should we not find a better way of activating good quality, moderated cost, private sector homes? And the answer is yes. And there’s a bunch of policy tools to do that. Instead of using fiscal policy, instead of using tax breaks, and free grant aid, look at the combination of land zoning,

master planning and site servicing to derisk private developers at no cost to the public. This would ensure better quality housing delivery. And in exchange, you’re attracting a different kind of developer.”

What about those in Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil who argue that Sinn Féin are anti-home ownership. Are you?

“No,” replied Ó Broin. The responsibility of government and the housing minister is not to tell people whether they should own or rent. The government should be tenure neutral. It should ensure that everybody, whether they are low income, modest income or high income, has an appropriate choice of the kind of accommodation that suits them.”

I finally asked Ó Brion was he ready to become housing minister if Sinn Féin were able to form a goverment and he was asked to take up the post.

“Absolutely,” he replied.

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Paying for the housing crisis Dr Conor McCabe, author of Sins of the Father:Tracing the Decisions That Shaped the Irish Economy, argues that radical solutions are needed if we are to tackle the shortage of social housing in the Republic

By Brian Pelan conomist Dr Conor McCabe, who lives and works in Dublin, has strongly held views when it comes to the housing crisis in the Republic of Ireland.

He grew up in a social housing estate, called Edenmore, which was built in the early 1960s. It’s situated between Raheny and Coolock on the north side of Dublin.

“It’s about four miles from Dublin airport,” said Conor. “It was social housing with a mixture of people who lived there.

There were a lot of civil servants and public servants and people who worked on the docks. In the 1980s it started to become ghettoised in terms of the people still living there – those who couldn’t work or who were existing on social welfare payments.

“The majority of Dubs who grew up in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s came from social housing. In the 1970s the banks started to get into housing in a big way.

There has also been a change in the housing narrative. I think there was a propaganda campaign over 30 years to start to describe social housing as ‘bad housing’. I would argue that the policy was to turn the social housing estates into a type of ghetto.”

I asked Conor how much had the area, in which he grew up, changed?

“There’s still a good proportion, maybe 30 or 40 per cent, who are still renting in Edenmore,” replied Conor.

“You have to remember that the State in the Republic brought in the Buy Your Own Home policy before it was introduced by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The Fianna Fáil government initiated the policy between 1967 and 1968. Thatcher introduced the policy in England in l980.

Conor contends that homeownership in the Republic peaked around 1991. “The reason is that they had sold off a large part of the public housing stock. It’s not unlike what happened in the former eastern

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Europe/Soviet bloc countries, such as Poland and East Germany, where huge swathes of public housing were sold off also.”

I asked Conor what did he think of the “but who will pay for that?” argument made by many housing experts and politicans when it came to calls for huge State investment in social housing.

“We do pay for housing anyway,” replied Conor. “The government in the Republic recently announced an extra €250 million in subsidies to private developers to build housing stock. So we do we pay for it. First of all nobody actually buys a house, they buy a mortgage. And then they pay off their mortgage, so they’re paying interest on it.You then get access to the deeds of the house if you make all the payments after 25 to 30 years.You don't actually own the house – the bank owns it – until you pay off everything. And even if you had paid off 90 per cent of the loan, if you miss any payments, they can take the entire house. They don’t just take the percentage that still outstanding, they take the whole goddamn thing because they actually still own it until you have paid off the full amount.

“So what you had in the 1970s was the creation of a mortgage market. We went from a social housing policy to a mortgage policy,” said Conor.

“It’s not possible to have a fully functioning private housing market that is socially sustainable. But capitalism has tried it for nearly 150 years. It can't do it. It needs the the State subsidies to pay to make the interest payments on the loans affordable. There is a functioning somewhat kind of private housing market. What the State has been doing is trying to work out what is affordable for the private sector. “ ‘Where will the money come from?’ argument is based on extreme ignorance and lack of any kind of historical analysis.

It’s like watching someone argue that the world is flat. As someone who has spent

decades now studying housing and who has written books about it, I laugh at the idea of “who is going to pay for this?’. We are paying for it.

“We can pay for subsidised housing or we can subsidise profits. There are billions of euros going into subsidising profits for landlords. It costs hundreds of millions every single year and it is going up every year as well. Plus we have large, institutional investors who have been brought in by the State and who pay no tax on their profits.”

I asked Conor for his views on on the Housing for All strategy which was launched by the Irish government in September last year?

Once again, Conor didn’t flinch from responding to the question.

“It's doing what it was it was designed to do which is to maximise profits for private companies. We also have the builders who are constantly threatening to go on strike unless they get more subsidies or more tax breaks.

“There was a kind of consensus after the 2008 crash that we can’t sell credit to people anymore, it’s just too volatile. So we sell credit to institutional investors. They buy the houses and then rent them out.

That seems to be the policy that is being pushed now.

“You’re not competing for the house with your neighbour or your peers, you are now competing against a multinational company that has access to billions of euros in funds. So they can afford it no matter what the price is for housing because they know that they can make that back from high rents. And that is what they are doing.

“The Housing for All document will do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis in Ireland because it is focused on protecting rates of profitability and not rates of affordability.”

• Dr Conor McCabe – Twitter account @CMacCaba

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COMMENT

Security is at the heart of home Dr. Michael Byrne, Lecturer at the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin, argues that housing insecurity, especially for renters, is dreadful for wellbeing he Irish Government has recently legislated for indefinite tenancies for tenants in the private rental sector.

This reflects something fairly radical for Irish housing; the recognition that renters deserve to have secure, stable and longterm homes. It is just the latest in a series of reforms for the private rental sector in Ireland, and indeed internationally.

Since 2016 successive Irish governments have extended tenancy terms and notice periods for termination, banned evictions in some circumstances, and given the Residential Tenancies Board, the regulator for the rental sector, extra powers to clamp down on rogue landlords.

Internationally, security of tenure has been strengthened in many countries, including (hopefully) in England in the near future, as suggested by Westminster’s recent White Paper.

Attention to the issue of security for renters is long overdue. Over the last decade or so a lot has been said and written about ‘generation rent’, but all too often the focus has been on unaffordable rents. Debates in the media often point to the difficulties faced by low-income households or would be first-time-buyers locked out of home ownership by high rents. It goes without saying that rent increases and affordability are crucial issues. But when we reduce rental housing to its price, we inadvertently reproduce a way of thinking which is actually at the core of the problems in the rental sector, a way of thinking which sees rental housing as simply a market commodity.

What this neglects is that rental properties are, or should be, homes.

Everything we have learned about the crisis in the rental sector in Ireland over the last decade points to the centrality of security for tenants. There are two key aspects to this.

First, security is at the heart of home.

Indeed, it is an oxymoron to speak of insecure homes because without security

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Tenants should breathe a sigh of relief when they sign a lease, instead, they are holding their breath there can be no home. Academics Kath Hulse and Vivienne Milligan use the term ‘ontological security’ to talk about ‘the interrelationships between the physical dimensions of housing (such as basic safety and security) and the psycho-social dimensions of home such as privacy, emotional security and identity’ (Hulse & Milligan, 2014: 638).

Ontological security describes the feeling of stability we get from the reliability of places over time, a feeling that gives people a sense of permanence, predictability and control. Home is all about having a stable place that gives you a sense of at least some certainty into the future, something, I would argue, that everyone needs to feel well. But the arguments here aren’t just theoretical.

There is now a huge body of research that shows how housing insecurity, especially for renters, is dreadful for wellbeing.

The second reason that security

needs to be at the heart of how we think about the private rental sector is homelessness. With more than 10,000 people in emergency accommodation in the Republic of Ireland, it is crucial that we understand what is driving individuals and families out of their homes. While high rents are a factor, the main issue is insecurity.

In the Republic of Ireland, landlords can terminate a tenancy, i.e. evict, for a number of reasons. These include if the landlord wants to sell or refurbish the house, or if they (or any member of their extended family), want to live in it. As research by Focus Ireland and others shows, this lack of security for tenants is, by a large margin, the major driver of homelessness.

To be clear, the power of landlords to evict tenants does not arise out of thin air.

It is given to them by legislation. This not only means that tenants can be evicted, it also means that tenants can never know when – or if – they may be evicted. In other words, they can never feel secure.

And therein lies the major flaw with the latest Irish legislation – it grants tenants indefinite tenancies, but does not grant them security within their tenancies, and therefore fails to address the core issue. Tenants should breathe a sigh of relief when they sign a lease, instead, they are holding their breath.

Indefinite tenancies, as with strengthened security of tenure in many different countries, represents a progress and has important symbolic value in terms of recognising the rights of renters. But we need to go much further and be much more ambitious if we want to turn rental ‘housing’ into rental ‘homes’.

• Dr. Michael Byrne is on Twitter – @mickbyrne101 • A weekly newsletter from Dr. Michael Byrne is available to read at https://bit.ly/3HJxDki

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COMMENT

A ‘rigged’ housing system Architect Rob Curley argues that working, alternative models exist. And, he says, if we are ever to achieve them in Ireland, we need an informed public to assert agency over housing policy he last 10 years saw a hands-off approach from the Irish government on housing, the offloading of delivery to the private market, accompanied by policy decisions informed by a global phenomenon that emerged after the 2008 crash called ‘Asset Urbanism’ which saw the rise of institutional investment and private equity in housing markets, who are primarily interested in housing as resilient asset classes.

Through NAMA, the government sold off land cheaply to investors and speculators, and invited in vulture funds, choosing an institutional investor and REITled housing model to outsource financing and responsibility. That model increasingly demands concessions in the shape of new homes and communities, to optimise their financial return and performance as assets.

This was enabled through specific policies. Section 28 (c) of the Planning and Development Act 2015 introduced by Alan Kelly allows the Housing Minister to make diktats to which local authorities must adhere, meaning whoever has the minister’s ear has the key to policy changes. Kelly reduced standards for new apartments, which stalled delivery as developers went back to the drawing board seeking higher densities.

Kelly’s successor Simon Coveney brought in Strategic Housing Developments after being lobbied by Property Industry Ireland, allowing large scale developments of more than 100 units to bypass local authorities and go straight to An Bord Pleanála, setting a target for unit numbers on many unsuitable sites.

Former Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy again reduced standards for new apartments in 2018, citing the need for “new and exciting” forms of housing such as “co-living” and “build-to-rent” for “young and increasingly internationally mobile workers”. These niche housing types avail of further reductions in

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Unlike REITs and private developers, the State’s first duty is to the common good, not shareholders ... standards. Murphy also removed local authority power over building heights against the recommendation of his own department. Betting on high-rise induced land speculation and ensured sites are only viable for the largest builders.

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien subsequently axed co-living in 2020 but not before letting a flood of applications through. His reasoning was that the lower standards and higher return of investment made other housing types such as costrental or affordable purchase less viable.

This is a major criticism of much-maligned “build-to-rent” housing which is increasingly displacing other housing forms in Dublin, forming almost 82 per cent of all residential schemes in planning in 2020.

We effectively have a housing system that has been rigged to the benefit of the largest institutional players. Reductions in standards in the name of “cost-saving”

induced massive speculation wiping out affordability. This system is premised on bluster around supply and demand, all supply being equal and “trickle down housing”, which ignores empirical research around the building absorption rate in private housing markets which means developers will not build so much, so quick, as to make their return of investment fall.

Greater clarity around specific policies and their motivations is crucial to resolving Ireland’s housing crisis, and push for alternative policies based on best practice in other countries. Housing policy should be led by expertise from the professions that are qualified in the design of new communities. Finance and economic models are required to input to enable this, but they should not be leading it.

Unlike REITs and private developers, the State’s first duty is to the common good, not shareholders, and can therefore increase housing delivery beyond the absorption rate. The land market can be disciplined through effective site value tax and enforcement around vacancy and dereliction. Working, alternative housing models exist. If we are ever to achieve them in Ireland, we need an informed public to assert agency over housing policy.

• Rob Curley is a registered architect, director of Dublinbased practice Maremoto, and an outspoken critic of Irish housing policy and its impact on the delivery, liveability and affordability of new urban development.

More info on our practice’s work and involvement in housing policy research: www.maremoto.studio/projects/h ousing

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‘Our overall motivation is to have a community living back in Sailortown’ Campaigner: Terry McKeown

By VIEW editor Brian Pelan search on my computer for the word ‘Sailortown’ offers this description from Wikipedia: “A working-class community in the docks area of Belfast. Established in the mid-19th century on partly reclaimed land, it had a mixed Protestant and Catholic population. The 1907 dock strike called by trade union leader James Larkin commenced in Sailortown before spreading throughout the city.

“Urban redevelopment in the late 1960s resulted in Sailortown's eventual demolition. As of 2021, only two churches, one pub and a few houses remain of the once bustling waterfront enclave. However, a combination of private investment in the greater Docks area and building of social housing by associations such as Clanmill has led to a growth in population since 2010 in the Pilot St area.”

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The last remaining original houses of Sailortown in Garmoyle Street, Belfast Terry McKeown, Project Leader at Sailortown Regeneration Group and originally from County Fermanagh, is heavily invested in supporting the restablishment of a thriving community in the area. “I first got involved after hearing stories from local women who grew up in Sailortown,” she said. “I developed an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund about 10 years ago. It was based on interviewing different groups of women in north Belfast.

“We picked three different groups: Gallahers Tobacco Factory; the Poor Clare community on the Cliftonville Road; and Sailortown. I got more involved after chatting to the women who grew up in this area.”

A highlight of Terry’s work is her involvement in the restoration campaign for St Joseph’s Church in Sailortown. The church was closed in 2001 after the Catholic Church decided there was no longer a sustainable local population in the area.

The Sailortown Regeneration Group eventually took out a 150-year lease on the building,.

“When people realised the church was in danger of being knocked down, they became radicalised and the keys ended up being handed over to our group,” she said. “Fifty years ago 5,000 people were moved out of Sailortown when the motorway was built in the late 1960s. A lot of people who were re-located said they were promised that they could move back to Sailortown when new houses were built. That never happened. And over time the women discovered that their community was gone. Their homes had gone and St Joseph’s was the last remnant of their history.

“We held a public event in the church recently which was very successfull and more activities are planned for the future. Our overall motivation is to have a community living here again in Sailortown.”

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COMMENT

Tackling the gender housing gap Sara Reis, Head of Research and Policy at the Women’s Budget Group in the UK, argues that the current housing and living costs crises threaten to widen inequalities, not least those between women and men hen we’re measuring gender equality, it’s easy to lean on the gender pay gap as the best gauge for where women and men sit in the economy. In many ways, the gender pay gap has become shorthand for all of the inequalities that women experience. But in reducing inequality down to this one measure we neglect to consider the impact that earning less has on women’s ability to buy or rent a home of their own – in other words, the gender housing gap.

In 2019 the Women’s Budget Group calculated that there was a housing affordability gender gap in every region in England. The average house cost over 12 times the average English woman’s salary, and eight times a man’s salary. Buying a house is out of reach for an increasing number of people, but it is clear it is harder for women to afford one.

Things haven’t changed significantly since then. In 2021 the average house in England was still 12.6 times the average woman’s salary and 8.5 times the average man’s. Just as in 2019, renting continues to be unaffordable in every English region for the average woman as it absorbs over a third of their wages. In contrast and by this measure, men can afford everywhere except London, which has the highest rents and house prices in the country by far (for example, the average 2-bedroom home costs an extra £1,000 per month to rent in the capital than in the North East).

While most people buy or rent with someone else, usually their partner, and so housing costs and bills are shared, there is something fundamentally disempowering in not being able to afford to live on one’s own. For many women, this means considering the impossible choice of remaining with an abusive partner or facing homelessness.

Homelessness is in fact something more likely to be experienced by women.

While rough sleeping, the most extreme and visible face of homelessness, is

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Buying a house is out of reach for an increasing number of people, but it is clear it is harder for women to afford one overwhelmingly a male experience, women are the majority of those classed as ‘statutorily homeless’ by local authorities.

This is everyone who doesn’t have a home and includes those in temporary accommodation, and those who may be sofa-surfing or living temporarily with friends or relatives. This is again a reflection of the fact women earn less and own less and therefore have a harder time meeting housing costs.

Single mothers and their children are particularly at risk, and they are two-thirds of families with children who are currently homeless. Nearly half of single parents are in poverty, as childcare costs higher than rents or mortgages present a catch-22 for families where the only adult is the primary caregiver and sole breadwinner: get a job but see your salary eaten up by nursery fees or stay at home to care for your young child but not have enough money to keep a roof over your head.

During the pandemic the government made it harder for landlords to evict people so the number of homeless people decreased. But now that those regulations have been removed, homelessness is on the rise again, and the rate of evictions has increased at record rates.

There are worrying signs that the housing market is accelerating and getting out of reach for an ever-increasing number of people. Cheapest rents in the capital have been rising the fastest in the last year – squeezing the incomes of the poorest the most. By contrast, it is the lowest wages that are increasing at the slowest pace.

With housing and living costs on the rise, as inflation hits a 40-year high, workers are facing a cut in real terms in their paycheques as wages are not keeping up with the 9.1 per cent inflation rate. The gender pay gap is closing at a snail’s pace and, in 2021, women were earning £10,000 less per year than men.

In addition to a smaller paycheck at the end of the month, women also have less wealth in the form of savings or pensions, which means they have less wriggle room to face rising food prices, energy bills and higher rents. The current housing and living costs crises threaten to widen inequalities, not least those between women and men.

• Sara Reis is Head of Research and Policy at the Women’s Budget Group where she has led research on female poverty, affordable housing, and the gendered impact of Covid-19.

Sara is currently coordinating WBG’s work on the Local Data Project, on a Feminist Green New Deal, and the impact of the cost of living crisis on women.

• Women’s Budget Group – wbg.org.uk/

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An illustration of what a cohousing development could look like

Joanna tells VIEW why she is passionate about cohousing solution to housing need he term ‘cohousing’ may not be a term that is readily familiar to people seeking alternative ways to live but its popularity is increasing as a rapidly growing older population looks at ways to find a house which is affordable and offers a sense of security.

The UK Cohousing website (cohousing.org.uk/about-cohousing/) offers a brief description of the concept: “Cohousing communities are intentional communities, created and run by their residents. Each household has a selfcontained, private home as well as shared community space. Residents come together to manage their community, share activities, and regularly eat together.

“Cohousing is a way of resolving the isolation many people experience today, recreating the neighbourly support of the past. This can happen anywhere, in your street or starting a new community using empty homes or building new ones.

“Cohousing communities can be intergenerational, welcoming anyone of any age and any family structure, or specifically to cater for people who are older or are communities of common interest, for example, for women or LGBT groups.”

Co-housing originated in Denmark in the mid-1970s, and swiftly became established in Scandinavia, Germany and the US. Cohousing communities have also emerged in the UK over recent years.

I met cohousing supporter Joanna McMinn in a Belfast cafe recently to find out more about the idea. Her background is in the not-for-profit sector. She has

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Solution: Joanna McMinn worked in adult education, community education, and women’s organisations. She grew up in Cornwall and first came to Ireland as a young student in 1967.

“I’m 73 years old and I have been interested in cohousing as a solution for my own housing needs as a woman living

on her own,” said Joanne.

“A project that I’m involved in is looking at a development of 20 homes – six houses and 14 apartments.

“In terms of cohousing, you get one mortgage for the entire development. And then for somebody like me, who doesn't have equity but could put together savings of around £20,000, I could have my own flat.You are then contributing towards a mortgage. The whole equity supports me to do that. The principle of our scheme is that you never pay more than 35 per cent of your gross income. We’re also aiming for mixed tenure so people who want to rent would be paying local authority rates.

“Everyone is not putting in the same amount of money. What you’re aiming for is permanent affordability, so that nobody, whether they put in £20,000, £50,000 or £100,000 – if they leave or if they die – can put that house onto the open market.

“There are eight of us at the moment in our cohousing steering group. We have at least 100 people on our mailing list. I promise you that if we had permission to build tomorrow we would be inundated with people who would want to take part in it.”

Meanwhile, 1,500 trees have been planted as part of Portaferry Cohousing's vision for a 32-unit housing development, with a common house, shared growing spaces and woodland walks.

More details about the Portaferry Cohousing scheme can be accessed at www.portaferrycohousing.org/about

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