Politicians at Belfast City Hall have been told every empty home in the city is "a slap in the face to people on social housing waiting lists”.
Members of a housing tenants union this week gave a deputation before Belfast City Council, as individual councillors prepare to discuss a motion urging action to address empty houses in the city, including the creation of an 'Empty Homes Officer' at City Hall.
Despite the huge demand for public housing there remains a substantial number of homes in Belfast which are empty. According to Land and Property Services at Stormont this figure sits at 3,694 for the Belfast area.
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There are over 48,000 families on the social waiting housing list across Northern Ireland. One in every 32 people are homeless - that is either sofa surfing in the houses of friends, living out of a suitcase in hostels or other temporary accommodation, or sleeping rough on the street.
In the last decade, the number of people officially homeless in NI has risen by 136 percent. Landed Property Services report there are over 22,500 vacant domestic properties - the figures are closer to 47,000 if second home short term lets are included.
The new council motion, forwarded by People Before Profit’s Michael Collins, and seconded by the Green party’s Áine Groogan, will be discussed at a council committee later this month.
It states: “The council commits to working with the relevant departments to try to bring empty homes back into use as affordable and social housing. The council notes that the Department for Communities Empty Homes strategy, which aimed to do this, ended in 2018.
“The council therefore commits to developing a strategy alongside DFC, the Housing Executive and other statutory bodies to ensure there is a coordinated action plan to bring disused homes into public use.
“This action plan will be funded and appropriate measures such as an empty homes rates premium, strengthened compulsory purchase powers and financing support for converting empty homes into social housing are brought forward to ensure it is able to be delivered.
“The council will seek to establish an Empty Homes Partnership, similar to the Scottish model, which will coordinate these efforts with the relevant bodies. The council will also seek funding from DFC to appoint an Empty Homes Officer in order to liaise directly with the owners of empty homes, to understand why the home is empty, and to offer tailored solutions to turn it into a home again.”
Community Action Tenants Union, or CATU, is an all island community and tenants union formed in 2019, whose ultimate goal is universal public housing.
Sean from CATU told the chamber at the full Belfast Council meeting at City Hall on Monday: “As the housing crisis spirals out of control, tens of thousands of homes lie empty across the North.
“Every empty home is a slap in the face to people on social housing waiting lists. Every empty home is an insult to the people sleeping rough on the streets. Every empty home is a visual representation of a failed state.
“One key barrier to building more social housing is the lack of water waste infrastructure capacity. Empty homes are already connected to the water waste network.
“It will always be cheaper and less environmentally destructive to bring derelict properties up to standard compared to making buildings from scratch. Other towns and cities on these islands use empty homes as a key tool to tackle the housing crisis.”
Hanna from CATU told councillors: “As more and more people are being made homeless and in the absence of the social housing people so desperately need, private landlords are allowed to evict tenants at will. Through CATU we see private landlords holding eviction over tenants' heads as a continuous threat.
“At the same time rents here are rising faster than anywhere else in the UK or the Republic of Ireland. There has been a 10 percent increase in rents over the past year, and £1,100 per month is the average rate of rent in Belfast - there has not been a 10 percent lift in quality of housing in the past year, nor has there been a 10 percent lift of wages of workers in the past year.
“We know we can’t trust landlords to provide safe, secure homes. We know they are motivated by profits, the commodification of housing, and the power they can assert over tenants. We need rent control and a no fault eviction ban.”
She added: “People are making profit from this housing crisis, and the Housing Executive are complicit in lining the pockets of private landlords and private companies providing temporary accommodation. Recently a housing advisor said in a meeting with one of our members that their 'hands were tied' by private companies in relation to housing stock.
“Social housing should not be a money making scheme. 34.4 million pounds was spent on temporary accommodation in 2023-24. We see the budget for social housing go into hostels, hotels, B&B’s as temporary accommodation. These accommodations have facilities that are unacceptable, and conditions that border on inhumane.”
She said: “The housing crisis is the biggest crisis on this island today - it is connected to every other issue. It is connected to the race riots we saw last summer, to elderly people in our society feeling isolated. It is related to domestic violence, and workers feeling disempowered.”
Councillors will discuss the proposed motion at the Strategic Policy and Rseources Committee on Friday March 21st.
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