SURRENDER
HE has failed to address the housing crisis in nationalist North Belfast
Nationalist North Belfast is facing the nightmare of more high-rise flats after the Housing Executive admitted they were struggling to clear the housing stress list.
And in what campaigners say is yet another indication of the failure of the North Belfast housing strategy, Housing Executive Director Gerry Flynn has conceded that houses are being built in loyalist areas not because of need, but because “the Protestant community still feel they want to create a community and build.”
The shocking admissions were made in a meeting held at the end of May between the Housing Executive, St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s Housing Committee and local politicians.
The independently compiled minutes of the meeting reveal Housing Executive Belfast Area Manager Maurice Johnston openly discuss building “apartments” to alleviate need in nationalist areas.
The minutes state: “M. (Maurice) Johnston explained that in order to deal with all existing need and have family housing there will be apartments.”
The meeting goes on to discuss the building of houses in loyalist areas of North Belfast, and for the first time has a Housing Executive member concede that one strategy is trying to deal with two different problems on either side of the religious divide. A failed single strategy has been a bone of contention among housing activists who have long insisted that North Belfast needed two strategies.
“G Flynn responded that there are two different issues (in North Belfast), the burgeoning demand for housing by Catholics and the little or no supply of land. There has been a dwindling Protestant population leaving the city, but the Protestant community still feel they want to create a community and build,” the minutes state.
Gerard Brophy from St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s housing committee who was at the meeting is also recorded in the minutes. He said nationalists should not be forced to put up with housing that has been shown to fail in the past, and a system that makes North Belfast a ghetto.
“The community has been down the road of flats and seen the problems of developments like Unity Flats.
“People are being squeezed out of their natural community because families in nationalist areas are being told by the district office that with 100 points they have no chance of being rehoused, because there are people with 200 or 300 points ahead of them.
“People with 140 points are in need of housing but are sitting 20th on the list whereas on the Protestant side a family could get a four bedroom house with the same points,” the minutes state.
Gerard Brophy went on to express concerns about who the North Belfast Housing Strategy was actually for.
“Housing Executive figures show that 22 per cent of 152 houses have gone to people from outside North Belfast. That would lead me to ask just who the North Belfast strategy is actually for?”
A spokeswoman for the Housing Executive said they had not been given a copy of the minutes, compiled by the Northern Ireland Tenants Action Project, and therefore could not comment on the contents. However a spokesperson for NITAP insisted they sent the minutes to the housing body at the end of May.
Journalist:: Evan Short
