'Absurd': Call for action over 1500 empty homes in Derry & Strabane amid housing crisis

The council is demanding that the Empty Homes Strategy be fully implemented and updated to help address the issue of housing shortages.

Tabling the motion, SDLP Councillor Lilian Seenoi-Barr said: “In the last 10 years the population has grown by more than 90,000 people yet housing build has not kept pace with this population growth and as a result we have a housing crisis that is putting families under huge stress and shutting a generation out of home ownership for social housing.”

She went on to state that there are currently over 45,000 people on the waiting list for housing, including almost 6,000 in the council area. The private rental market is also struggling, with typically 20 to 30 applicants for each rental property.

She continued: “This council area has the highest population of people presenting as homeless out of any council district. It’s as plain as day to anyone looking at this problem that we need to revisit our approach to housing if we are going to cope with the crisis in front of us.

“Today, there are around 22,000 homes lying empty across Northern Ireland, of which 1500 are within our councillor area. The fact that so many homes lie empty in our local council area in the middle of a housing crisis is just unforgivable and this is going unabated when we lack a functioning end to home strategy and the fact that owners are not even required to provide notice of changes to properties is just absurd.”

The SDLP representative highlighted the fact that the Department of Communities acknowledged that empty homes are a wasted resource.

“In 2014, the Department for Communities published an empty home strategy and a review of this strategy was undertaken in May 2021,” she said. “The review found that the strategy to ensure that the number of empty homes in Northern Ireland is kept to a minimum has had only limited success and made four recommendations, buying back previous social homes, acquiring more properties through long term leases, the purchase and conversion of non residential property and the regeneration of older failing estates with derelict housing.

“This motion is intended to send a clear signal that we cannot allow this situation to continue indefinitely and that the housing crisis must be combated.”

Cllr Rachael Ferguson of the Alliance party also spoke in support of the motion, highlighting the need for more housing in rural areas. She said that ‘empty homes within our city and district could be reused and re-purposed so that people have a family home.’

Sinn Féin Colr Patricia Logue echoed these sentiments, stating that there are currently over 20,000 empty properties across the North, and that urgent action is needed to address this issue. She called on the government to implement the Empty Homes Strategy and to offer long-term leases to those in need.

Colr Logue stated: “We need Ministers in place to drive forward strategies and this will not be achieved until the Assembly is reformed so I would urge all parties to look at all the issues that we have within our council district and get back to work in order to find some solutions.”

As a joint proposer of the motion, SDLP Cllr Rory Farrell too highlighted that there are currently over 1,500 empty homes in the city and district.

“We have over 5000 people waiting to be housed and people will rightly be thinking what is the government doing to try and bring those homes back under use. There needs to be a real focus on bringing the homes back into use because the status quo isn’t providing any comfort to date anybody on that housing list, in fact it’s nonsensical.”

The Council will write to the Permanent Secretary for the Department of Finance calling for him to work with the Land and Property Services to identify gaps in legislation and to explore incentivising owners to register their domestic properties as empty, and take urgent steps to support owners of vacant properties, as outlined in the Empty Homes Strategy Review.

Council will also write to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) and housing associations to discuss the effective acquisition and conversion of vacant properties.

The motion passed unanimously.

Gillian Anderson

Local Democracy Reporter