Over 13,000 children in 'urgent housing need' in NI

Participation and Practice of Rights has said that effectively places the young people in a state of homelessness.

It comes after an FOI request by PPR revealed that there are 20,950 children on the housing waiting list.

The charity claims those who find themselves in urgent need are being forced into emergency accommodation such as single-parent hostels, cramped shared facilities or sofa surfing on a nightly basis.

As part of efforts to highlight the crisis, Homes Now and Equality Can't Wait campaigners have produced a documentary, 'Waiting For A Childhood', featuring some of those affected.

Among them is nine-year-old Sudanese girl Shimous Aidaroos.

"It's not fair, housing is a human right," she said.

"People who are homeless should have a voice too."

Caoimhe Owens, 13, also features in the short film, telling the story of how her and mum Geraldine were forced to move from hostel to house for over a decade before finding a more long term solution seven months ago.

"You didn't want your friends coming in because there was always damp about," she said.

"It was hard to explain to them why there was black stuff on your walls - it was hard to explain to them what was going on in our life.

"They're calling hostels a home, and friends and families' sofas home, which clearly isn't a proper house."

Caoimhe's mum Geraldine said the 15 years in which she moved from place to place without any sense of getting further ahead.

"You feel kind of useless, like a failure as a parent, because they don't have a stable home," she said.

"It's just unfortunate the crisis situation today and there's so many children being affected.

"My young daughter didn't even want to come back to the house, it just din't feel like home.

"It just felt like we were passing time until we got somewhere.

"Our health was affected by it too, as we're both now asthmatic."

Campaigners want to see more coordination between the Housing Executive, the Department for Communities and Belfast City Council around creating more space and funding for social housing.

Elfie Seymour from PPR said it's time for action.

"The families in the campaigns have already gone out and photographed sites which cane be used to build a huge amount of houses," she said.

"They've commissioned economists to show where the money could come from to build those, but what's missing is the political will to put those houses on that land.

"We are urging them to act immediately to solve this crisis."

A Housing Executive spokesperson said: “We understand the difficulties faced by many local families that have presented to us to access social housing.

“Our staff provide solutions to address, as best we can, the requirements of families in need of housing, often who present to us with a range of difficult issues that have affected their lives.

“We have a statutory duty to assess and to strategically target housing need, focusing on new build social housing programmes in areas of most need.

“Each year, we house approximately 5,000 families and individuals in our properties form the social housing waiting list due to changes of tenancies.

“In addition, our partners in local housing associations allocate approximately 2,500 homes each year, again through changes of tenancy.

“In terms of new housing supply, we continue to provide, on average, 2,000 new social homes per annum in Northern Ireland, in partnership with housing associations, in line with the Department for Communities’ targets and funding availability.

“We continue to advocate for additional resources to tackle housing need and assist those on the waiting list."

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