In April last year, Gordon Lyons, the Department for Communities Minister, told us he had no intention of ending the Right-to-Buy Scheme for Housing Executive (HE) homes.  Grainia Long, the CEO of the Housing Executive, was silent.  Right-to-Buy for Housing Associations ended in 2020.  The Housing Executive has a Right to Sell social homes to people who live in them.  Proportionately, households from a Protestant background are more likely to live in Housing Executive (74%), as opposed to Housing Association properties (26%), in contrast to households from a Catholic background (67% & 33% respectively).

The Community Action & Tenants Union (CATU) stands firmly against Right-to-Buy; the Policy has depleted the number of Housing Executive social homes by 59%.  If you are not among the few who can buy a social home, but you live in a social home, the Housing Executive (and Housing Associations) has a Right to Evict your family, after you pass away, curbed by only minimal conditions (see Part B).

Flouting all accountability under Section 75, we live in a State in which Housing Injustices against Catholics, and other equality-related groups, are systemically perpetrated:

1. Households from a Protestant background are more likely to be able to own a home (70%), and less likely to have to rely on private renting (13%); households from Catholic- and Other Religious backgrounds are less likely to be able to own a home (62% & 40%, respectively), and are proportionately more reliant on private renting (19% & 36%, respectively; %s taken from 2021 Census data).

2. Despite having a Housing Selection Scheme that is purported to allocate housing in proportion to need, households from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds are comparably likely to live in social housing (15-16%).

3. People from Catholic- and Other Religious backgrounds are more likely to live in conditions of housing stress, and, we suspect, are proportionately more likely to be homeless (this is certainly the case in Belfast, relying on PPR analysis; the Housing Executive does not publish data on homelessness figures as a function of Religious Background).

4. Households from a Protestant background are proportionately more likely to live in Housing Executive than Housing Association homes; Housing Association rents, which people from a Catholic background are more likely to have to pay, are higher and there are also service charges (Housing Executive rents are have traditionally been well below the Local Housing Allowance / the maximum rate of housing benefit).

5. In social housing, households from a Protestant background are more likely to be in a position to buy their social home (more likely to live in an NIHE property and a reduced 34% of households are employment deprived relative to the 41% of households from a Catholic background in social homes who are employment deprived); people from Catholic- and Other Religious backgrounds are more likely to face an eviction when a family member who was a tenant passes away.

Note that we say systemically perpetrated.  CATU has a pluralistic membership.  We know that ordinary people of a Protestant background have no motivation to discriminate against people of a Catholic background or Other Religious background.  Discrimination is systemic because people in positions with the authority to monitor outcomes, and to adapt interventions to ensure that resources and services are delivered in proportion to need, taking equality-related characteristics into account, appear to be choosing not to do so.  Duties under Section 75 are arguably being willfully ignored.

Targeting Housing Executive Succession Policy, which outlines the criteria enabling the Housing Executive and Housing Associations to evict family after the lead tenant has passed away, and evictions from Private Rentals and Temporary Accommodation, CATU made the following demands:

1. Halting all evictions from social housing (NIHE and housing-association) related to Succession Policy immediately, and pausing investigations in all cases, on grounds that the Policy discriminates against:

2. People of a Catholic background / people more likely to support republican or nationalist political positions, in particular

3. Women and children

4. People who are disabled

5. People who are separated / divorced from a previous partner

6. Urgently subjecting NIHE Succession Policy to an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA)

7. Ensuring that any future evictions related to Succession Policy, following the EQIA, are not discriminatory, i.e., each case needs to be risk assessed against the potential of discrimination related to Section 75 characteristics

8. Ensuring your workers establish whether a case is a statutory succession prior to investigating a case as a policy succession

9. Calling for a moratorium on evictions from privately rented- and temporary accommodation, until you can confirm/disconfirm, with confidence, that evictions in this context are dis/non-discriminatory based on Section 75 characteristics.

Thus far, the Housing Executive has refused these demands.  We consider this refusal to potentially be in breach of Section 75, particularly given that: “The Housing Executive does not hold or collate” data on Succession Policy Applications (FOI 564). 

We remain in hope that Grainia Long, CEO of the Housing Executive, will reconsider the Housing Executive’s position.  CATU will continue to defend all members faced with an eviction.  To join CATU, click here.

To read the Open Letter we sent to the Housing Executive, please click here.  To read the Housing Executive’s first response, please click here.  To read our subsequent response, please click here.