There is no 'peace dividend' for the growing number of people living on the streets of a rapidly changing Belfast, writes Bryan Coll.
ARTICULATE AND smartly dressed, Stephen is enthusing about the changes he's seen in Belfast and analysing the city's investment potential. But for the moment, he's unlikely to gain much benefit from the city's improving economy.
Last Saturday, the former business developer spent the night on a bench in the city centre. It wasn't the homecoming he had expected on his return to his native Northern Ireland. After 15 years studying and working in Chicago, Stephen arrived back in Belfast two months ago to live with a family member. After a series of violent arguments, he was forced to leave his house and was soon wandering the city streets with only a few toiletries in his possession.
"This is totally foreign to me," says Stephen, five days after his first rough-sleeping experience. "Up to this point in my life, I've always had a good home and a good job. It hasn't sunk in yet that I'm homeless."
Stephen is one member of a growing homeless population in the North. In the past five years, the number of households registering as homeless with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (a group known as "homeless presenters" in official terms) has almost doubled. In 2007, over 21,000 households in the North declared themselves homeless.
"Once you say homeless, people think of drug addicts and alcoholics," says Stephen. "But there has to be lots of people just like me in this situation."
Stephen is among 40 homeless people eating lunch at the Welcome Centre at St Peter's Cathedral on the Falls Road. Besides a smaller sister facility in Derry, this is the only day centre for the homeless in Northern Ireland.
Needless to say, all seats in the cafeteria are filled. But providing meals and a roof is only one part of the Welcome Centre's work. Once the spaghetti bolognese has been served up, and medication given to those who need it, staff members are busy counselling, motivating and telephoning.
Each week, a nutritionist and a GP hold surgeries in the centre, providing assistance to those who often slip through the medical net. Come 10pm, preparations are made for the daily outreach service, which sees volunteers traversing the city until 1am, handing out sleeping bags and sandwiches to people who have been turned away from city shelters.
According to director Sandra Moore, Belfast's homeless population has changed beyond recognition since the Welcome Centre's modest beginnings 15 years ago in the Divis flats.
"Back then we were dealing primarily with older men with entrenched alcoholism," says Moore. "Today, the complexity of issues has changed dramatically." Moore believes deteriorating mental health, rising drug problems and the vulnerability of migrant workers are some of the main causes of Belfast's rising homelessness problem. "There are also economic factors," explains Moore.
"Unemployment is starting to rise again and the cost of living is also increasing. Yet wages aren't increasing at the same rate. This doesn't bode well."
Patricia, a regular user of the Welcome Centre for the past eight months, is one example of the changing profile of homelessness in the North. After being forced to leave two homes due to domestic violence, she began self-harming and became addicted to painkillers as a result of depression.
Following psychiatric treatment, the 41-year-old moved from hostel to hostel for fear that her abusive ex-partner would track her down. Several hostels asked her to leave due to her self-harming - an illness she has since overcome.
"It used to be that every waking moment I felt like killing myself or hurting myself," she says. "But when places threw me out I decided to stop. I'm terrified of ending up on the streets."
Although Patricia has never slept rough, the stories relayed by fellow users of the Welcome Centre have warned her of the dangers of Belfast's streets. She describes how one rough-sleeper was set on fire by a member of the public and an industrial-sized bin thrown on to a homeless man, causing serious damage to his legs. "But at Christmas they get spoilt rotten with people giving them presents," she says, raising an eyebrow.
Across town in one of Belfast's most sought-after neighbourhoods, the Safe Moves group has just finished its inaugural session in the Belfast Foyer. Run partly by the Simon Community, the Foyer offers around 40 beds on the Malone Road to young homeless people in training or employment. Under the Safe Moves programme, young people are mentored by support workers who have also experienced homelessness at a young age.
One of the group members is 21-year-old Kevin, who says he was thrown out of his family home four years ago after an argument with his parents.
As a young, single male, Kevin is part of the largest demographic group affected by homelessness in the North. Last year, one fifth of all homeless presenters were under 26 years old - a rise of over a third in the last six years.
Yet under current criteria set by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the body that allocates social housing to homeless applicants, young men endure some of the longest waiting times, as single mothers and families are generally given priority status on available units.
"It was hard talking to the Housing Executive," says Kevin. "They didn't take me seriously because of my age. They thought I could just move back in with my parents."
According to Susan Norton, one of the mentors on the Safe Moves programme, young homeless people are prepared to take drastic steps in order to move up the Housing Executive pecking order. "I hear girls saying they're going to get pregnant just so they can get a house quicker."
Susan Norton's own situation epitomises the pitfalls facing young homeless people in the North today. As well as struggling with the stigma attached to homelessness - her family was "mortified" when she participated in a radio show - many young people in the North have fallen victim to a chronic shortage of affordable social housing.
Norma was made homeless after her husband ended their marriage while she was being treated with depression. Her children were taken to England and she has not seen them in two years. After many frustrating months spent on the Housing Executive waiting list, she rented a house from a private landlord. Less than a year later, she is already struggling to make ends meet.
Norton's recent employment by the Simon Community means her income has plummeted as she forfeited her rights to certain social benefits. "I don't even know how much rent I'm going to have to pay but I know that I won't be able to afford it," she says. "It's a real concern for me that I might lose my house and become homeless again."
In February, the Department of Social Development, headed by the SDLP's Margaret Ritchie, announced it would allocate funds to build 5,250 new units of social housing over the next three years. But housing advice bodies have warned that this will be insufficient to reduce the steadily increasing waiting lists.
Studies such as the 2006 Semple Report into housing affordability in Northern Ireland have recommended a minimum of 2,000 new units each year. The backlog has forced many vulnerable people, such as Susan Norton, to find a solution in the private rental sector.
"During the recent housing boom, there was a lot of investment in . . . private housing," explains Ricky Rowledge, director of the Northern Ireland Council for the Homeless (NICH). "Many landlords now own more than one property and are paying hefty mortgages. That translates into unaffordable rents."
The latest figures from the Northern Ireland Housing Rights Service show a 117 per cent increase in homelessness cases caused by mortgage default, while the number of repossessions has risen by a third in the same period. For campaigners, such figures are evidence that homelessness is slowly encroaching into new social groups in Northern Ireland.
"We're going to see a new group of people on normal wages who can't afford to keep their homes," warns Ricky Rowledge of NICH. "They are going to bump up the homeless population significantly."
Rising levels of homelessness are somewhat at odds with the continuing re-branding of Belfast. Terms such as "fuel poverty" or "housing stress" are far removed from today's Belfast brand, marketed confidently and successfully at the US/NI investment conference last week. Yet beside new software jobs and the lucrative peace dividend, a hidden feature of the emerging Northern Ireland is a widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots. "This society can only be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable people," says Lindsay Conway, chair of the Simon Community and director of Social Service with the Presbyterian Church.
For Conway, the only way to tackle homelessness in an increasingly affluent Northern Ireland is to raise public awareness of an often hidden social problem.
"The public's perception is that the homeless are problem people as opposed to people with problems. We have to show that given these people's circumstances, you would have turned out the same."
Back in the Welcome Centre on the Falls Road, recently homeless Stephen has good news. He has a job interview at a Belfast hotel. But this brief glimmer of hope is soon tempered by the prejudices that go along with his new circumstances.
Like all homeless people, Stephen knows his lack of address means it's likely he won't be given the position. "I was the kind of person who used to walk right by homeless people on the street," he says. "Now I see that the homeless aren't these stereotypical people we think of. It's people like you and me. I'm not sure people here realise that.