Campaign

Right to a Home

Take Back the City

A place to feel safe, secure and valued

People directly impacted by human rights abuses have unrivalled expertise in the causes and impacts of inequality and are best placed to develop solutions: individuals and families in emergency temporary accommodation, sometimes miles from their schools, jobs and support networks; asylum seekers and refugees in hotels, hostels and poor quality rental housing; those stuck on the waiting list, sometimes for years at a time; people in overcrowded or damp- and mould-ridden conditions; or those facing eviction due to ever-rising rents.

We harness these experiences into effective demands for lasting change.

Our campaigning has led to hundreds of families getting solutions for their housing needs, and homes on five of the six vacant sites we identified in 2019. We have created a full masterplan for the remaining site at the former Mackie's factory in West Belfast, and organised in the area local to the site to win the support of over 85% of people for homes there.

What we want

A generational shift in the provision of social housing supply
We want to organise and build new communities on available land in areas of the greatest housing need to address homelessness, lack of housing supply, inequality and climate breakdown.
Land justice
Public bodies and private developers hold vast quantities of land which could be used to address the housing crisis. On average, 20,500 homes sit empty across the north, with over 3,000 alone in Belfast. Councils' Local Development Plans, which allocate uses to vacant land have minimal interest in catering for the needs of those on the social housing waiting list.
Hold landlords to account
Hold social and private landlords to account for poor standards, failure to respond effectively to complaints and effect repairs, evictions motivated by profit.
An end to inequality and discrimination in the right to housing
Ensuring that the right to housing is available and accessible to all without discrimination continues to challenge public bodies in Northern Ireland. This includes addressing historic and persisting inequality against the Catholic community, rising forms of racism against black and minority ethnic communities as well as tackling head-on powers with a vested interest in sectarianising our society.