'Derry going back to Springtown Camp days': Housing Crisis

In the week World Homelessness was marked, it is clear from the soaring number of people presenting as homeless, Derry City and Strabane District is in the grip of an escalating housing crisis.

Derry News has previously reported that for the last three years in the North, this council area has had the second highest number of social housing applications where “loss of private rented accommodation” was given as the primary reason for homelessness.

The figure was 268 in 2019/2020, 184 in 2020/2021, and 268 in 2021/2022.

In addition, 78 private rented households here presented as homeless between April and June 2023.

On top of that 4,569 children in the North are currently living in temporary accommodations.

Speaking to Derry Now, Derry City and Strabane District councillor, Gary Donnelly (Independent) estimated more than 90% of his work related to housing and housing issues.

He added: “If there were 48 hours in the day, I could work on housing non-stop. I am only one councillor out of 40 on Derry City and Strabane District Council  but I know from talking to other councillors, they are in a very, very similar position to me with their workload of housing cases.

“There is probably not a day that goes by I don’t get somebody sitting here in front of me or on the phone in tears because their landlord has just asked them to leave their private rented accommodation.

“And some of these people would be mature. They might be in their late 50s, maybe going into their 60s, and maybe have a couple of grown-up children living with them for different reasons because there are just not the houses for their children either.

“This is what I am dealing with on a daily basis. I am also dealing with pensioners who are distraught and are daunted by the prospect of having no option but to go online to deal with everything,” said Cllr Donnelly.

Gary Donnelly revealed it was not unusual for people to be sleeping in cars.

“I had one woman I was dealing with recently who had just had a major operation,” he said. “She had come here and had told me she had had to sleep in her car the previous night. Thankfully she is now in emergency accommodation in a B and B or a hotel, having gone through an extensive application process.

“The amount of evictions or notices to quit has risen astronomically.”

Cllr Donnelly also criticised what he described as the ‘NIMBY-ism’ of people living in the High Park area of the city who are currently opposing a social housing development in the area.

He added: “I would question the motives of some of the people who are objecting to this proposed development of 125 potential social housing units. I personally, with the housing caseload I have, could fill that at least three times over.

“Maybe there are people there who have genuine reasons for opposing the development but I think there is a planning process which will look at all of that. However, there is a suspicion within the community that it is pure NIMBY-ism. It’s ‘pull the ladder up. I’m okay here now so pull that ladder up’.

“There is a belief the real issue behind this opposition may be financial. There has been talk about property being devalued.

“My personal opinion is, this is social housing stock so I am backing this proposed development. 

“In fact, I would go so far as to say, we need another 10 such developments. Even if it got the go ahead, this development wouldn’t touch the sides of the housing need which currently exists here,” he said.

Cllr Donnelly said a petition in support of the potential development in High Park is currently circulating.

He added: “When people are signing it, they are telling me their stories.

“I spoke to a woman in her 80s who said for the first number of years, when she got married, she had had to live with another family, with her two oldest children. That is not unusual now in 2023. We are actually going back to the 1950s and 1960s where there were two or three families living in one house.

“Another big problem is children living apart from their immediate families. Sometimes, where there is just not enough room, you may have a teenage daughter or son, studying for exams, who is forced to go and live with an aunt or an uncle simply so they can function.

“If there are a number of children in one room, sleep patterns are disrupted.

“We seem to be going back to the pre-Civil Rights days, the days of Springtown Camp. Remember Civil Rights was about housing and, in my opinion, it sounds very, very similar to what is happening today,” said Cllr Donnelly.

The Moor councillor said homelessness in Derry was caused by the lack of social housing.

He added: “The problem is the Housing Executive has not built any homes in decades. So, we now have, in my opinion, semi-private housing associations as landlords and some of them leave a lot to be desired.

“A lot of people have vulnerabilities and there just isn’t the same accountability with housing associations that there is with the Housing Executive.

“The Housing executive owns millions and millions of pounds worth of property, so if it was allowed to borrow on the strength of that and Stormont or whoever allowed it to build, it would be a lot better.

“The Housing Executive has a better ethos when working with the community. Its workers are local. 

“They know the needs and issues on the ground.

“Some of the housing associations do not even have an office in Derry. I think it is only a matter of time before tenants here are ringing a call centre in England to get repairs done.”