| From Unity, 21 November 2009 |
Racism and segregation are costlyby Pearse McKennaIn the same week that Margaret Ritchie launched her shared housing policy, saying that a house is “the most fundamental issue facing anybody,” the number of repossession actions in Northern Ireland hit a five-year high. There were 1,124 court cases received in the courts from July to September, a 12 per cent increase on the same period the previous year.Lauren Kerr, policy officer of the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, said more people coming through their doors are concerned about losing their homes than ever before. What the market-driven philosophy tends to forget is that there are many things in life that are not marketable and can have no price. Take education, health, and housing. We are not just consumers of these services but understand them to be a necessary part of living. As the economic recession continues, the threat of losing one’s job, along with the threat of being evicted from your home, has immediate impact on mental health. People looking for solutions turn to the far right for simplistic answers. For example, “It’s all down to migrants coming here, taking our jobs and public housing.” In aggregate, migrants are more likely to be living in public housing projects than locals, although they only comprise a small percentage of the population. This observation needs to be tempered by the reminder that migrants are generally less prosperous than the indigenous population and therefore less likely to get a mortgage and own their own house, consequently they merit housing priority. It is also clear that many Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, who could live in integrated communities if they wished, have made the deliberate choice to live among their co-religionists. This enforced separation is a reason for segregated public housing in the North; consequently, people from other societies do not consider the extent to which segregation impacts on community life here. This, along with public housing stock being depleted through Thatcher and New Labour’s policies of selling off housing to tenants, has left only the poorest-quality housing in public hands, leading to Finance Minister Sammy Wilson’s department spending approximately £2.4 billion on suppliers, services, and building work. |
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