Equality Can't Wait Newsletter May 2015

“In May 2009, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed concern that inequality in housing policy in North Belfast continued to affect the Catholic community... long-standing issues related to inequality continue to require concerted efforts.” - United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, February 2014 Supporting you to use YOUR human rights to get CHANGE Cornelius

Allison ‘I needed a transfer from a flat that was not fit for my son away from anti-social behaviour and Clanmil weren't listening. After I got involved with the ECW campaign and put pressure on they moved me. Things are a lot better now.’

‘The NIHE put me through months of uncertainty and humiliation to evict me due to box ticking protocols which showed no flexibility or understanding of my plight. If it wasn’t for the excellent help and support of the ECW campaign I would be living on the streets these cold winter months. They informed me of my rights and empowered me to face the NIHE.’

Where it all started New Lodge, North Belfast The Equality Can’t Wait (ECW) campaign is led by people on the waiting list, in hostels and in poor housing from all over Belfast. It was launched in May 2012 by mothers and toddlers from the Seven Towers Residents Group living in cramped, cold, damp, high rise flats and hostels in the New Lodge.

Hostel families deliver 1000 signatures to Minister asking for homes based on need

Marie

Lisa

‘They moved me in and told me to start paying rent before all the work was done, my experience at the start was not too good so I got in touch with the ECW campaign and put some pressure on, after the letters they done all the jobs and I’m settled in and things are much better now’

‘I was complaining for months about my family living in a damp and cold home until I got involved. I sent letters off to the Minister and the Housing Executive with evidence. Within two weeks they fixed all the problems’

to decent homes, to award families the housing points that reflect their needs, to install new sewerage systems, to carry out essential maintenance and safety tests/ repairs to dangerous balconies and much more.

‘I felt like the Housing Executive took the time to look at my families situation after a number of human rights letters were sent’

Commissioner remarked were simply ‘not good enough in the 21st century’.

Families are being forced to live in ‘high demand’ areas in poor housing because the Executive is failing to build enough decent homes where they are most needed - despite overwhelming evidence proving inequality and equality laws in the Good Friday Agreement that promise to do just that.

North Belfast MLAs deal on Girdwood potential homes reduced from 220 to 60

The Elephant in the Room: Religious Inequality In May 2012 there was a political deal agreed

by North Belfast MLAs to reduce the potential homes at the Girdwood site from 220 to 60. This ignored religious inequality in housing. It added further insult to injury for families on the waiting list in the surrounding area and the Equality Can’t Wait campaign was launched.

Promises Need to be Kept The ECW campaign has secured the support of two United Nations bodies, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the Children’s Commissioner and many more housing experts. In May 2014, 49 MLAs from 6 political parties at Stormont, including five Executive Ministers, signed pledges ‘to do all in their power’ to develop a strategy to tackle religious inequality.

Over 40 years after the first Civil Rights march, and the conflict that followed, women, who were toddlers when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, have struggled daily to try and force the Stormont Executive to address this ongoing religious inequality in housing overwhelmingly impacting Catholic families.

But it has not been raised as a priority at the Executive table, nor did it feature as a priority in the latest Stormont House Agreement.

Since 2006 ECW, supported by human rights organisation PPR (Participation and Practice of Rights) have monitored human rights abuses experienced by residents and have pushed for real change in peoples lives. Led by ordinary people, who those in power often try to ignore, ECW has successfully forced the Housing Executive and successive This inequality has left their children living places which the Children’s Housing Ministers to act - to move families in EQUALITY CAN’T WAIT - 2015

Nichola

The denial of basic human rights for families in desperate need of homes must not continue to be the price to pay for ‘political progress’.

Promises must be kept. Equality Can’t Wait.

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Equality Canʼt Wait guitar flash mob goes to Hillsborough Castle - the permanent residence of the Secretary of State - December 2014

Faced with another Christmas without a place to call home, a bus full of women, children, singers and guitarists took the Equality Can’t Wait campaign to In December 2014, following the failure of Hillsborough Castle - the residence of the the Executive to acknowledge and address British government’s Secretary of State. the growing problem of religious inequality in housing, mothers and toddlers again took Due to the failure of the Executive to act, they asked the British Secretary of State, the lead.

Theresa Villiers MP, to use her legal powers under the Good Friday Agreement to intervene and address the ongoing breach of international human rights.

Calling for those with power to use it!

49 MLAʼs from SF, SDLP, Alliance, Greens, UUP, NI21 sign up to ʻdo all in their powerʼ - May 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

The families had also written to Executive parties who had supported the campaign asking them to raise the issue at Executive level and in the most recent Stormont talks.

money has been set aside to tackle religious inequality.

• ...that 10,561 people were removed from • ...that the Housing Executive only the housing waiting list and lost all of recorded 72 complaints in Belfast in 2014? their points in 2014 for not filling in an But ECW residents alone sent over 72 ‘annual renewal reminder letter’? And letters of complaint in 2014. there is no system to record how many people re-apply after being removed.

• ...that in north Belfast, there was a shortfall of 666 houses to meet the need for additional housing in the Catholic • ...that by September 2014 the Northern Ireland Executive and Office of the First community and a surplus of 72 available and Deputy First houses in the Protestant community in 2014.

It does not seem that either was done.

Two weeks after the Equality Can’t Wait action in Hillsborough, the Stormont House Agreement was reached.

There is no mention of religious inequality in housing, much less a commitment to tackle the issue.

However, the ECW campaign does not leave it up to elected representatives to act in their interests.

The campaign to date has forced decision makers to re-house hundreds of people into places they can call home, to award points reflective of people’s needs, to solve long ignored maintenance and repairs issues, to compensate residents for damage caused by poor housing, to right the wrongs of unfair rent charges and to change polices which did not even consider residents in the first place.

Minister ‘held no information’ about a strategy to tackle religious inequality or the damning report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on housing regarding religious inequality, which was released in March 2014? The promises of May 2014 had not translated into Executive action.

• ...that in 2014 Catholics in Belfast spent almost twice as long as Protestants on the waiting list?

• ...MLA’s agreed a budget in March 2015 to spend £10m on shared housing and £3m on new housing in areas of ‘low or no’ demand? No

ECW gets crucial information from housing providers by helping residents use ‘data protection’ and ‘freedom of information’ laws.

All information printed here was sourced from government and housing provider documents.

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Karen With the help of PPR I am finally beginning to see changes in my housing situation. After 13 years of being ignored I have finally been given a voice. Since PPR have become involved in my housing situation the Housing Executive have agreed to do some long overdue repairs and renovations including the installation of a gas heating system, double glazed windows and a new kitchen. It hasn't all been plain sailing but with the ECW campaign behind me I feel supported and strengthened and with their help I will continue to campaign for a better home for myself and my family.

Mary C

Sammy Jo I felt like I was being given any excuse for their own incompetence which left me and my children in a very vulnerable place not knowing where we would be living , from joining the ECW campaign I have had the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders and have no more stresses as all my problems were solved within days. I don't know where I would be without them

Top UN housing expert visits Seven Towers with residents

Mary T Being on the list 8 years and living with 2 small kids in a variety of upstairs flats I felt my life was going nowhere and I had no place to call home. From joining the ECW campaign and being housed within weeks me and both my kids have lay roots and changed our life for the better. We are much happier and settled.

‘Basically I didn't exist before I got involved with the ECW Campaign. Since joining the campaign I have increased my points and been made offers.’

Elinor 'Before I came to the ECW campaign I felt lost and confused about everything. I felt like I was fighting a losing battle but with a little help in the right direction and meeting up with other people in the same boat I feel relieved I'm not on my own and I can talk to others who share the same problem.'

EQUALITY FOR ALL

GET INVOLVED

Equality Can’t Wait grew out of the campaigning efforts of mothers and kids homeless or being forced to live in unacceptable housing conditions.

Since these beginnings, Equality Can’t Wait has been contacted by people and groups from across Belfast, and further afield, who want to be part of our growing network.

Seven Towers residents protest poor housing conditions

In 2015 residents will be surveying in your community. Last time we surveyed over 270 Housing Executive and Housing Association homes and found that: •38% of people had damp, •70% were unhappy with their heating system, •only 12% were happy with the response they got when they reported a problem, •71% said their poor housing was leading to ill health •73% said their housing was unsuitable for families.

These include Traveller families living without electricity or safe water supply, people with disabilities who are being leveled with unreasonable service charges by their landlord, single people and families living for extremely long The Equality Can’t Wait campaign ʻThereʼs land and money - No more excusesʼ periods of time in ‘temporary’ uses this research to campaign for hostels due to the housing shortage, ECW deliver their research to decision makers change for residents. or people from largely Protestant communities who are being forced into unaffordable private accommodation while social homes lie Through the human rights campaign, PPR and ECW have helped vacant in their area. hundreds of families engage with their housing providers effectively to get results - people who were fed up with constant phone calls and being The Equality Can’t Wait campaign will do anything in its power passed from one person to the next without ever getting a solution or a to support people who experience chronic housing need and straight answer. Those residents have led by example and gone on to help abuses of their rights. hundreds of other across Belfast in all communities. Join with us today!

Check out the work we do on our website www.pprproject.org/right-to-housing Call us on 90313315. Email info@pprproject.org EQUALITY CAN’T WAIT - 2015

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