Housing Discrimination – 100 Years of Partition
Since the inception of the partition and the creation of ‘Northern Ireland’ – housing has been used as one of the foremost tools for the dominance and survival of Unionism and the British Occupation of the Six Counties. Even prior to partition, land was key to British colonial rule in Ireland as they lavished their settlers with the best land and homes available to buy their loyalty and service.
With the creation of the ‘Orange State’, housing resumed its importance in maintaining Unionist hegemony and the loyalty of many of the descendants of the original colonial settlers to the British Empire. Whilst the process of housing discrimination altered over time to ensure its survival, the practice of housing discrimination against Catholics remains as evident and indispensable to the northern state and its security.
Those with even the most basic understanding of the history of the Civil Rights movement in the Six Counties will likely recall housing as one of the most pertinent demands of the protestors. Housing was an essential pillar to the maintenance of unionist political hegemony, as home ownership (or property relations and its accompanying social status) dictated people’s voting rights. The right to vote was a privilege confined to landlords and public housing tenants. Catholics were more likely to be unemployed due to job discrimination, which ultimately meant they were less likely to be home owners, and therefore relied on private landlords or the state for access to housing.
This created a system at a municipal level wherein landlords had multiple votes and their Catholic tenants had none. A Catholics best chance at winning a right to vote was therefore by being allocated a council house, however the allocation system was controlled by Unionists (via the district councils) who actively discriminated against Catholics in favour of protestants due to their perceived political allegiances. In the 1960s, Catholics comprised around 35% of the population but occupied just 6% of local council seats. In Derry, the 1968 municipal elections returned 12 Unionist, but only 8 Nationalist councillors – despite Catholics comprising 62% of the electorate.
The unfair allocation of housing was central to the process of gerrymandering by the Orange state to ensure unionist electoral dominance. Catholics could only be housed in areas wherein they wouldn’t upset the electoral balance, and if that threat arose they would be easily evicted – legally or illegally. Additionally, the housing system of the orange state was not only defined by anti-Catholic discrimination, but by a housing stock that was unfit for purpose, with severe overcrowding and damp conditions being common place within working class ghettos.
Such an apartheid system of repression would of course breed resistance, which came in the mass mobilisation of people under the banner of the Civil Rights Movement. A campaign of civil disobedience would win some significant reforms, one of which was the creation of a central housing authority (the Housing Executive) that was intended to be removed from the control of Unionism. The Housing executive would assume responsibility for all aspects of housing provision from the old authorities, most importantly: building and allocation. Throughout the 1970s, the Housing Executive undertook a large-scale programme of new social build. Between 1971 and 1979 a total of 57,223 homes were constructed (an average of 6,358 per year). A considerable achievement, particularly by today’s standards.
Yet despite mechanical changes throughout the following decades, a system of anti-Catholic discrimination persists that has created a housing crisis worse today than that which helped birth the civil rights movement. Homeless waiting lists are still overwhelmingly occupied by Catholic families, with severe housing shortages existing within traditionally catholic districts whilst many Unionist controlled areas enjoy a surplus of housing availability. Housing inequality in North Belfast for example has been subject to three United Nations investigations, each one further exposing the discrimination in housing allocation and new build planning which has created a homeless waiting list of which 80% of applicants are catholic.
A system of segregation is enforced from the top-down via unionist politicians, the Housing Executive, and loyalist paramilitaries, mostly to the disadvantage of Catholics and immigrants. It is a segregation epitomised by ‘peace’ walls that dually serve as economic demarcations for rent levels. Excessive rents: a common struggle shared disproportionately again by Catholics due to the demand crisis in traditionally catholic neighbourhoods. Catholics brave enough to move into unionist controlled areas are commonly evicted by the governing loyalist paramilitary organization, such as in the shared-housing initiative in East Belfast in 2015 or as recently as April 2021 in Carrickfergus.
Such an immense disparity in the share of the housing crisis is a consequence of concerted efforts by unionist and loyalist forces to defend their dwindling electoral strongholds, and thus the security of their state (as they see it). Unionist government ministers’ decisions to remove policy prioritising new build housing in the areas of highest demand (catholic areas) and repeatedly interfering in Housing Executive business to block land being zoned for social housing has ensured homeless and poverty levels remain high within catholic areas. North Belfast again offers a wealth of evidence for this.
The Unionist majority in North Belfast has been dwindling for decades. From 1983-2001 the Unionist majority fell from 17,217 to 2,699 and feeling threatened from a rising Catholic population the DUP made a driven effort to ‘Keep North Belfast Unionist’. In 2009 the Housing Executive (citing ‘insufficient funding’) dropped its ring-fence policy for new build social housing to target disadvantaged groups. This was the year following the Department for Social Development projection that between 2008-2012 96% of the need for additional social housing units in North Belfast would be needed for Catholics. The change in policy now meant a 29% reduction on new build housing targets for the already deprived residents of North Belfast.
Nigel Dodds whilst serving as the MP for North Belfast continually intervened within the Housing Executive throughout 2013-2014 to stop Hillview being earmarked for any social housing projects. Nelson McCausland, whilst serving as the Minister responsible for housing, continually denied that Catholics comprised a disproportionate amount of the homeless population. In 2013 he even intervened to successfully block another social housing project in North Belfast, instead favouring a multi storey car-park to be erected instead. Both men also intervened to limit the social housing unit proposal for the North Belfast housing project at the former Glengormley RUC barracks.
If the resulting misery wasn’t indication enough that elements of the old Orange state remain intact today, in 2015 housing and planning powers were handed back into the hands of councils after 40 years – the very bodies the Housing executive was established to relieve of housing duties because they could not be trusted. Even the Orange Order still demonstrably holds power in deciding the fate of homeless Catholics, when from 2014-2019 it blocked planning proposals to build social housing on a vacant piece of land in Belfast close to an Orange Hall, as they believed Catholics would be given the homes.
This is a strategy of gerrymandering by new means!
Whilst not only does discrimination in housing against Catholics still exist, rampant levels of housing injustice is evident for all sections of the Irish working class: Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and more. There are 20,592 people deemed homeless, a third of the population struggles with unaffordable rent/mortgage rates, and vast public land viable for social housing is being sold to developers to build shopping centres and hotels over homes.
When it comes to the housing crisis, 100 Years of Partition is rotten, capitalist, sectarian, and nothing to celebrate!
