Integrated Social Housing: Implications for New Build
by Brendan Murtagh and Shauna McDaid, Social and Community Sciences,
University of Ulster 2000
The policy statement reaffirmed the Housing Executive's stance against violence but, in substance, concentrated on four related areas: the control of intimidation; addressing interface violence; the treatment of symbols including murals; graffiti and kerbstone painting and; addressing segregated housing.
Intimidation is a growing problem in Northern Ireland and has increased since the latest paramilitary ceasefires. The Housing Executive's report pointed out that it is largely a summer phenomenon and that the numbers asking to be re-housed as a result of intimidation represent only 1% of their tenants. Moreover, the problem is concentrated in relatively few estates with only 58 out of 600 reporting an incident. The response emphasised the need for monitoring the incidence of intimidation and the development of related Action Plans for each District. These would set out the interagency approach required to address intimidation and anti-social behaviour particularly in vulnerable mixed estates. Two estates were selected for pilot studies leading to the development of a full Community Safety Strategy focusing on sectarian intimidation. In addition to this Northern Ireland wide approach, the Housing Executive also identified twenty estates in nine Districts that were significantly affected by interface violence. Again, the response emphasised the need for detailed monitoring of the problem, short-term annual action plans for each area and nine long-term pilot studies to test out new practice and possible ideas.
Dealing with sectional (sectarian) symbols in the form of graffiti, flags and murals is a highly contentious issue which to some extent, underscores the serious intent in the Executive's approach. The document pointed out how murals formed an important expression of community art, solidarity and territorial ownership. Whilst acknowledging this dimension, the Housing Executive emphasised that their concern was purely with the effects of sectarian symbols on housing management objectives and in particular, the 'chill factor' it produces to those on the waiting lists. Sectarian symbols included:
1. symbols indicating support for Unionism or Loyalism or Nationalism or Republicanism;
2. symbols indicating support for paramilitary organisations, or
3. symbols indicating that the relevant estate is Protestant or Catholic 'territory' (NIHE, 1999, point 6.0).
The policy aimed at a pragmatic balance between reorganising the practical difficulties of removing symbols and the need to avoid 'chill factors' in mixed or highly sensitive areas. At all times the involvement of the local community was prioritised and that local cross-community support would be vital to achieve its objectives. Ultimately each Housing Management District would draw up an annual action plan to result in the removal of symbols in mixed estates.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the policy is the treatment of segregated estates. The document recognised the structural origins of the problem in the wider Northern Ireland conflict and, using their own threshold of 10% present by either religion, suggested that 71% of estates are currently segregated. But it also emphasised the results of public attitude surveys, which showed that roughly the same proportion of people would prefer to live in mixed housing. The suggestions in the policy were short on detail, instead relying on the importance of further research and pilot testing initiatives on desegregation and integration. But it did make the strategic policy commitment to address segregationist trends in currently mixed estates and supporting mixed estates to maintain their equilibrium in the long-term. Again, an emphasis was placed on working with the community and other agencies and a slow and cautious approach to change.
1.6 The costs of segregation and benefits of integrated housing
In the short term, the Housing Executive's response to these tensions has emphasised the importance of community safety and practical actions that can help to produce crime-free housing environments. But it also implicitly recognises that integrated housing brings broader benefits including the development of trust, community reciprocity and improving cross-community relations. A deeper understanding of the values, cultures and lifestyles of the other community or 'out-group' helps to build mutual understanding, respect and tolerance. But it is important to recognise the powerful benefits of segregation to people experiencing the worst effects of internecine conflict. Residential segregation has provided communities with important defence, cultural enrichment and organisational capacities and the Housing Executive's traditional reluctance to tamper with these deeply structural processes reflects a concern for issues of personal safety and community vulnerabilities. However, as new political and policy space is beginning to open it is, at least, worth exploring responses to the problems created by segregation and the potential for integrated housing to minimise its worst effects.
Table 1.1 illustrates a range of housing management, planning and development
costs connected segregation and division. Boal's (1969) seminal work on
the Shankill-Falls Divide in Belfast showed how communities operated within
their own territorial boundaries for shopping, services and communal and
kinship interaction (see point 1 on table 1.1). Linked to this spatial dynamic
is the issue of population mass and the institutions, facilities and services
that a population can support (2). Poole and Doherty (1996) and Templegrove
Action Research (TAR, 1996) demonstrated a close connection between locality
decline as a consequence of a community feeling uncertain about its ability
safely occupy a particular locality. As 'exit' becomes a strategy for coping,
the residing community is less able to support local institutions. Marginal
communities such as The Fountain in Derry/Londonderry and Suffolk in Belfast
are experiencing serious decline set-off by these processes of change. It
should be emphasised that these trends are not confined to urban conurbation's
and there is now well grounded evidence of similar trends and processes
in rural areas (Murtagh, 1998) and in District Towns (Paris et al., 1997).
Associated with this is a process of residualisation whereby communities
occupying marginal, dangerous or contested territory are increasingly characterised
by high rates of social deprivation and poverty (3). Added to this is the
daily experiences of people living in an area affected by often low-level
but constant violence, pervasive fear and the threat of attack (Life on
the Interface, 1993; TAR, 1996). For example, a joint study by the Housing
Executive and the Eastern Health and Social Services Board found that the
residents of the Protestant enclave of Suffolk experienced higher rates
of long standing illness, attendance at GPs and stress than the rest of
Northern Ireland population (NIHE and EHSSB, 1995). Deaths and injuries
as a consequence of 'The troubles' were also highest in areas where ethno-religious
space was most contested (Fay et al., 1997) (5).
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