Figures released by the NI Housing Executive this weeek on homeless resulting from continuing levels of both sectarian and intra-community intimidation by paramilitaries are truly shocking.
In the last year alone (2015-2016) some 433 people say they were forced from their homes by paramilitary threats. The executive accepted that three quarters of them were sufficiently serious cases to warrant its help in relocation, bringing to over 1,400 the cases it has handled in the last five years and roughly the same numbers in the previous five. The statistics were provided in Stormont in response to a question from Green Party MLA Clare Bailey.
The level of threats compounds the homelessness criss which saw the executive last year deal with a total of 1,137 families who sought emergency housing, many forced to stay months in temporary accommodation because of the lack of permanent houses. Over £4.9m was spent on housing people who were considered homeless in 2015, an increase of £1m in four years.
Deeply worryingly, nearly two decades after the Belfast Agreement and a year after the signing of the Fresh Start Agreement which included commitments by the North's major parties to work together to see paramilitaries dismantled, the intimidation figures show no significant improvement on ten years ago after a significant dip in 2010. NGOs claim, moreover, that the official figures are serious understatements of the problem. because of the difficulties involved in validating claims.
Intimidation is coming from nationalist as well as loyalist groups, some of it naked sectarianism, some of it vigilante responses to “anti-social” behaviour. Last year 77 people also sought rehousing from the executive because of anti-social behaviour; 39 did so because of sectarianism fears, while 23 did so because they claimed they had suffered racial abuse.
Perceptions many have, notably in the South, that the North has returned in recent years to some kind of “normality” and that paramilitary organisation is dead is belied by such alarming figures. Peace comes slow.