MINISTER FOR Social Development Margaret Ritchie has unveiled a scheme to support integrated social housing in communities across the North. The scheme was welcomed by the Alliance Party but criticised by Sinn Féin.
The Shared Neighbourhood Programme will see £1 million (€1.26 million) invested in 30 shared housing schemes in Northern Ireland over three years.
Five housing areas have already been earmarked for the financial support: Springfarm, Co Antrim; Lissize in Rathfriland, Co Down; Tonagh in Lisburn, Co Antrim, Gortview/Killybrack Close in Omagh, Co Tyrone and Ballynafeigh in Belfast. Another 25 communities are expected to come on board over the next two years.
The North's housing agency, the Housing Executive, will manage and administer the funds to the programme. It will work closely with existing community organisations to help to develop the 30 integrated communities further.
The Housing Executive said that the cash would be used to to invest in essential infrastructure and for initiatives that would help promote reconciliation and understanding.
The International Fund for Ireland is part-financing the project with £698,000, while the remainder of the £1 million sum will be met by the Department of Social Development.
The scheme has been given a mixed response.
Anna Lo of the Alliance Party welcomed the move.
"Alliance has been calling for funding like this for a long time, so it is good to see that they have finally come round to our way of thinking," she said yesterday.
Sinn Féin's Carál Ní Chuilín, however, said that the announcement offered "nothing new" to what has already been stated.
"The Minister's approach to shared housing while deeply well meaning totally ignores the real housing issues facing us," she claimed.
Ms Ní Chuilín continued: "People don't need empty rhetoric or false hope, they need a strategy to deal with the housing crisis and a long-term approach to tackling the divisions within our society that require a lot more than one or two mixed housing estates."
Paddy McIntyre, chief executive of the Housing Executive, responded by saying that both mixed and single-identity estates deserve assistance.
"This is about supporting communities, helping those which have made the first steps," Mr McIntyre said.
The British and Irish Governments set up the International Fund for Ireland in 1986 with the intention of providing a footing for economic advancement and for reconciliation between unionists and nationalists throughout Ireland.
The fund's main contributors are the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Since its establishment, it has invested £590 million into the North.
Ms Ritchie emphasised that the project would be community-led and that it would form a central plank for her "New Housing Agenda", launched earlier this year.
"I made it clear that I wanted to provide housing that would bring people together, not keep them apart," she said.