The North's housing crisis and the ecosocialist alternative
by Amy Merron
Article originally published in Issue 6 of Rupture, Ireland’s eco-socialist quarterly, buy the print issue:
The housing problem in the North is by no means a new phenomenon but the vast array of issues in housing have only increased in the past number of years for students, renters and mortgage holders, reaching a point of crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst house prices are relatively low in comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom and the South, the cost of housing does not reflect the income of the average earner here. Median annual earnings are the lowest in the United Kingdom.[1]
Decades of inaction from the political establishment have forced people into poverty. In the North, 17% of the population live in relative poverty and 241,000 people live in absolute poverty[2]- this is even before housing costs are considered. Supports for the working class and vulnerable people are being cut whilst the cost of living is on the rise. Universal Credit has recently been cut by £20 a week, and people on legacy benefits have been left without support during the Covid-19 pandemic. People will be forced to choose between heating or eating this winter even before the precarious housing situation here is taken into account.
““People will be forced to choose between heating or eating this winter even before the precarious housing situation here is taken into account.””
Housing & rental prices
During the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a housing boom which has seen house prices skyrocket across the North, although these prices have not yet reached the prices found in the South. People that could work from home searched for properties that had more space whilst those who were furloughed or made redundant struggled to pay rent. Across the North house prices have risen by 9% on average in the last year.[3] The biggest increase in house prices is found in the constituency of East Derry, where the average house price has risen 16.9% to £171,442. [3]
Renters are not spared by any means, and rents have increased by 6% in 2021.[4] The recent boom in property prices has left even long-term tenants in fear that their landlords will sell up or reclaim the property to rent to more “profitable” markets like students, or to convert their properties to Airbnbs for holiday makers. These fears aren’t solely felt by those living in Derry or Belfast, they are felt in rural areas too. One person from County Tyrone got in contact to say:
“My rent is quite good compared to the local area, however we live with the real possibility that our landlord will sell… it would be impossible to find somewhere else and would cost at least £100 more per month. The lack of social housing if we were put out really scares me”.
The increase in rent has made it more difficult for people to gather realistic savings to catch up with the increase in housing costs. How is it feasible for any individual to own their home? When does it become untenable in the eyes of the government? When the average house price is £300,000? £400,000? When do they realise the inevitable consequences of inaction? We are heading towards a violent recession and a housing market and banking system that are primed to collapse, and when this does happen working class people will be asked to pay for the greed of the millionaires and billionaires through ‘quantitative easing’, ‘austerity’ and ‘trickle down economics’.
Student accommodation
““Students across Ireland put up with substandard housing and high rents as if it is simply part of the ‘student experience.’””
Landlords and developers know that there are types of accommodation that can make more profit than others, yet this leaves a huge gap in the private rental market for the elderly, couples and families. Students across Ireland put up with substandard housing and high rents as if it is simply part of the ‘student experience’. Purpose-built student accommodation was overwhelmed when universities returned this autumn, forcing more students to seek accommodation elsewhere, usually at the hands of private landlords with profits in mind. Students pay exorbitant rents for accommodation that is a risk to their health where there is often damp or black mold, infestations of all kinds and appliances that haven’t been checked for hazards or replaced.
Landlords of these student houses can make a hefty profit with most landlords charging rent per student. In student areas in Portstewart, Co. Derry, it is almost impossible to find accommodation that isn’t for “student let”. In the Holylands area of Belfast, students are often demonised and blamed for the condition of the area. However, the landlords of these properties do nothing to ensure that students are moving into a clean, safe environment to carry out their studies. How can we expect changes to legislation on a national or even a council level to provide adequate protections for renters when elected representatives of the establishment parties are landlords themselves? Ellen Fearon, president of the students union, NUS-USI, explains,
“Student housing as we know it is completely unaffordable, meaning students are locked out of accessing their education. While rents increase year on year, student finance has remained completely frozen for almost a decade. To put this into context - one of the lowest private student accommodation rents available in Belfast is £119 per week, amounting to £4,522 for a 38 week lease. The maximum student maintenance loan available to students is £4,840, meaning that 93% of student finance goes straight into rental costs This leaves £300 for students to eat, to buy books, to heat our houses, to buy electricity, to live on. This system is entirely unsustainable and we need urgent action.
“Some of the student housing stories I hear would give you the fright of your life. Rats, mould, leaks, bare electrical wires hanging out of ceilings. My own ceiling came in last year on a rainy night and it took our landlord months to fix it. Everyone has a student house horror story and that shows just how deeply ingrained the problem is! Our choice is currently to choose between paying too much for purpose built student accommodation or pay less to live in substandard housing, except, there is no real choice there. Working class students are actively being left behind in this housing system.”
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive
The Housing Executive continues to be one of the great achievements that came from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and has a statutory duty to provide accommodation for homeless people through social housing. There were 42,665 people waiting on social housing lists in December 2020. 70% of them qualified under the government's own “housing stress” criteria.[5] Between January and June 2021, the Executive’s own numbers show that 3,416 children between the ages of 0-17 years old are statutorily homeless, with the highest proportion being 0-2 year olds at a horrifyingly high number of 795 children.[6]
The disparity between social and private housing is clear. From April to June 2021, according to the Housing Executive’s own numbers, 245 new social houses were in the process of being built and 270 new houses were completed. This is compared to the 1,994 new houses that are currently being built in the private sector alongside 1,733 house completions.[7] Statistics published in 2021 showed that there were 8,610 people who presented as homeless. 26% of these said that their ‘accommodation was not reasonable’ and a further 13% cited a ‘loss of rented accommodation’ as their reason for being homeless[8] - due to some protections that were in place for renters during the Covid-19 pandemic, this could increase in 2022.
““Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party have both made attempts to privatise sections of the Housing Executive and hand contracts to private companies.””
The Housing Executive needs funding to continue to be viable - but instead of providing the funding needed, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party have both made attempts to privatise sections of the Housing Executive and hand contracts to private companies. A 2015 survey completed by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive showed that of the 780,000 dwellings in the province 63% were occupied, a shockingly low number by comparison to the waiting lists for housing in Northern Ireland. In addition to this, 61,000 of these houses failed to meet the decent homes standard.[9] Nothing in these numbers will come as any particular surprise to anybody, and few words if any will be different in this article than have been written in countless other op-eds, think pieces and articles, but as ecosocialists we see that there is a clear desire for a resolution that puts the needs of communities before the greed of corporations.
Across the globe there are governments that have tackled this crisis simply by housing people that need to be housed - this should not be a radical statement in the 21st Century. In Finland homelessness is falling and in the capital Helsinki it has been nearly eradicated. The commodification of housing is a choice - it is choosing profit over the needs of the people and caters to the wants of developers and investors rather than needs of local communities.
Ecosocialism is the answer
Not only do we need to see an increase in the number of social and affordable housing projects that are built but the climate crisis means that we also require a just transition for housing. This is particularly true for the working class families who have contributed very little to the climate crisis but will be asked to foot the bill of the big corporations when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. To achieve a just transition in the housing sector, the welfare of the planet and the lives of working class people must be of paramount importance. Stormont must not continue its practice of handing out contracts to private corporations. We need to fight against the privatisation of the Housing Executive to guarantee that an accountable public body can remain in place to protect tenants and workers’ rights. Where it is possible, older housing stock should be taken into public ownership and refurbished rather than allowing vultures to hoard this stock until it becomes inhabitable just to build apartment buildings to make a profit. The provision of new housing stock should not be at the expense of our areas of outstanding natural beauty and social housing projects should encourage biodiversity and enhance the natural habitats, not destroy it.
When we see the total lack of action coming from Stormont on this crisis, it is clear that the establishment parties see it as an opportunity to lighten their load by proposing further privatisation. There is a lack of political will to build social housing, This is particularly true in the case of the Mackie’s site in West Belfast and the Tribeca development in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter.[10] The establishment parties have exacerbated the housing crisis by permitting profit-driven private enterprises to enter into the housing market. Corporations and housing vultures lick their lips at the thought of lining their pockets at the expense of people and the planet. There is now a generation looking at the real possibility of never owning a home and mortgage holders are unsure if they will be able to pay their mortgage off.
The housing crisis will not be solved by the Stormont Executive or by private developers. It is simply a symptom of late stage capitalism. Neoliberal ideas can only treat symptoms but they will never confront the cause - this has been illustrated in the mass corporate greenwashing that has occurred during COP26. Mass movements like those that have been seen in the South are what is needed to tackle the corrosive rot of capitalism and achieve a just transition in housing for all. Across the North, there is an appetite for change and the demand for housing justice is no longer being viewed as a radical pipe dream. How we solve this crisis now is crucial. We need to see long lasting, sustainable housing that is built or refurbished to ensure a better quality of life for everyone now and for the generations to come. A just transition for housing is not simply a radical demand - it is now a necessity.
Amy Merron is an ecosocialist feminist activist, student and People Before Profit representative for East Derry.
Notes
1. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (2021) https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/labour-market-and-social-welfare/annual-survey-hours-and-earnings
2. Department for Communities (2021) https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/system/files/publications/communities/hbai-2019-20.pdf
3. Land & Property Services assisted by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency today released the House Price Index report for Quarter 2 2021 (2021) https://www.finance-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/dfp/1bwxvbvkfpxcrytwgnknv.pdf
4. Northern Ireland Housing Executive (2021) https://www.nihe.gov.uk/Documents/Research/Private-Rental-Market-CURRENT/perfo mance-private-rental-market-NI-Jan-July-2021.aspx?ext=
5. Luke Butterly, ‘Social housing waiting list 10% higher since start of pandemic’, The Detail, 11 February 2021. https://thedetail.tv/articles/social-housing-waiting-list-10-higher-since-start-of-pandemic,
6. Department for Communities (2021) https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/system/files/publications/communities/ni-homelessness-bulletin-jan-jun-2021.pdf
7. Department of Finance (2021) https://www.finance-ni.gov.uk/publications/new-dwelling-statistics
8. Department for Communities (2021) https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/system/files/publications/communities/ni-homelessness-bulletin-jan-jun-2021.pdf
9. Northern Ireland Housing Executive (2016) https://www.nihe.gov.uk/Documents/Research/HCS-2016-Main-Reports/HCS-2016-Infographic-Summary.aspx
10. Rory Winters, ‘Council plans for Mackie's site in west Belfast criticised amid calls for social housing’, The Detail, 24 April 2020, https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/council-plans-for-mackie-s-site-criticised-amid-calls-for-social-housing-in-west-belfast