Dublin Ógra Shinn Féin launch 'Housing is a Right' Campaign

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice and Ethics Mon Aug 20, 2007 22:23

Let ther be a code of morality and ethics to ensure people have a right to adequate accommodation
Excellent article and well done for looking at the obvious and making the correct observations.


Some months back I noted the number of derelict houses that appeared in housing estates throughout Ireland......I was just looking at the TV but I qualify on the occasions with awareness. I wrote to the Minister for the Environment (Mr. Dick Roche) at that time, to ask why his Department would sanction such an idiotic policy as to leave delipidated properties in the midst of housing estates, particularly where social and economic difficulties exist. It goes without saying, I received no response. We are talking about faulty attitudes but not of those young people who hang out in the vacant space, but those attitudes of people who are deemed responsible to plan, design, renovate, inculturate, and maintain these estates.

When I was growing up in Castleknock back in the 1970's, the old School 2 storey, was derelict and young and old would gather for the variety of pursuits that a vacant premises allows......Eventually, it was knocked down and apartments built. The risk factor of the youth of the area, the delipidation, drinking/sex/etc; the value of the site, dictated action.
It is not that we have not got urban planners but maybe their function is dictated by min. hours at public service work and then input in the more lucrative private market.

Your heading is Housing. However, I need to qualify this with the provision that adequate accommodation is a right for every person. The 1980's provided many delipidated houses, that had become slums where families lived in rooms of old Georgian houses. This is something we must look at and ensure it does not happen again. I hear that certain apartments in town shelter a large number of individuals....
We have an obligation to our society and those who have lived in tthe hovels of the newly independent state, who worked, who gave birth the children who earn the money that fills the coffers for Government to spend honourably....and provide of vulnerable people who need accommodation that is suffice to be a home.

Simply, if you drive into a cul de sac in Finglas and you see a house boarded up, it is easy to assume that if the relevant department exists in the relevant Government Office, has been informed by the other residents....if the Government do their job efficient, learnedly and otherwise, they would prioritise a team to go out, renovate and have it up and ready for a new family (possibly in a hostel but definitely on the Housing list). This ought to be simple. Even if the family who vacated the premises were social misfits, the assumption cannot be made that the next family in, would fall into the same category.

Several months ago I wrote an article on Indymedia about Evictions in Dublin 4. Yes, you can believe it. Houses here now are worth in the millions but these same houses were Pre-1960 properties and in different decades when property was worth virtually nothing, these houses in Ranelagh, Rathgar, Wellington Road, Waterloo Road, Raglan Road comprised bedsits, some houses had 10 and 11 bedsits. Time has rolled by, markets have changed, Georgian houses for one family are back in vogue but there are always the casualties. These people often hailed from the country to the civil service, to the PV Doyle (Juries) hotels.

I think of women who life is spent from hard work now facing letters from Landlords who state vacate that room you have lived in - their home, within a few months.......these people live in the abyss of the unknown with the spirtuality of nature and animals to empower them.

For legal reasons I cannot name her but one of the living relatives of Lady Gregory lives in a bedsit in Dublin 4 - 70 years ago she was boarder in an elite boarding school. This woman lives in her flat for the last 37 years....she and many others are under pressure to find another place to live.

Affordable housing: What does this mean? Is it by raffle ticket? Is this not an insult to people?

Michelle Clarke
Quotation
Petra Kelly 1947-1992 German Green Politician
'We need policies of eco-justice, and we need to realise the spiritual dimensions of our life, of our interconnected planet Earth, of each other'

http://www.mentalhealthprisons.ie

by Sceptic Mon Aug 20, 2007 23:27

In itself housing is not a” right”. That is a lazy, simplistic, moronic slogan that ignores any issues about scarcity or resources that are at the heart of politics or economics or anything except the vacuous and anti intellectual politics of the “demand” and the placard and the easy photo op. People were unimpressed down south in the recent election where Adams and the SF types had nothing to say except “health is a right”, “education is a right”, this is a right, that is a right ….ad nauseum! They got their answer at the election which was to hell with you. All might not be totally well but we sure know what we don’t want and that is the “Mary Lou” and the rest of the shinners. Some weak echo campaign by OSF now will cut no ice though it might give a semblance of activity and outlet for action to the more weak minded and gullible OSF types.

by John Tue Aug 21, 2007 03:12

I'm all for activism and all that but seriously lads, how many campaigns can you try and run in one go?

Because it seems like OSF launch an awful lot of campaigns and then they sink without a trace soon after.. A campaign should involve much more than just a bit of leafleting and a photo of people holding placards.

by Jonah Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:20

"In itself housing is not a” right”."

Actually it is and has been affirmed as such in international treaties to which Ireland is a signatory.

http://www.unhchr.ch/housing/fs21.htm

Legislation to change our Constitution to reflect this was proposed in the last Dáil by Sinn Féin and supported by Labour, the Greens, the Socialist Party and a number of Independents.

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice and Emptics Wed Aug 22, 2007 00:40

Speptic I note your cyncism but must add that the Right tom Housing may be dificult to plut in place. Housing now covers maner modes of development.

I note the article before the elections that certan estate blocks were to be passed owner occupyer. The Transaction did not happy and now as this decision will come up, it is probably that prices will go up to reflect charges.

I would say knowing to buying these flats presently. This happened in the UK and then the negative equity came and debt exploded while unemployment looked on from the other side.

We need to get focused in on our Social Housing allocations and ensure that social housing is made availalble to the family affected by health, need for family.etc.

Hostels, affordable houses that cannot be afforded by certain people, accommodation outht to be a priority in this country.

Where derelict houses exist - let their be a specific design team to renovate and re house others.

Quotation
Waywardedness
Mae West (1892 -1980)

'I used to be snowwhite but I drifted'

Let look to civil rights and think of the importance of our health system,, the provision social and affordable housing.

It is said that there are many houses vacant in areas like Leitrim have a surplus of un-used section 23 homes i.e. second properties......Let get these productivity........

Michelle

by Gan ainm Wed Aug 22, 2007 16:42

The Falls road has loads of properties lying idle to the greedy eye of local landlords. Lets take the campaign to them.

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice and ethics Fri Aug 24, 2007 20:52

Last night I watched scenes from Moyross, in Co. Limerick. I never thought Moyross could have become such a neglected area with so many properties and rows of properties burnt out.

Where is the Department of Environment, Defence, Finance? It is pure scandal and neglect that allows people to live in an estate with a number of houses wrecked and destroyed.

An amount of money is required, an attitude of the bureaucracy is essential and the combined effort of people from Moyross through employment schemes need to be involved in the restoration of their estate so that they can forge a new identity and ultimately displace the criminal elements.

Good luck to the Franciscans and your move to Moyross. I sincerely hope the Government provides the funds to ensure a new identity, as has happened in Ballymun.

The same approach goes for Belfast and all other schemes.......

I am sorry to hear that Pat Rabitte has chosen to stand down but I hope people like Joan Burton, Mr. Gilmore, Ruari Quinn, commit labour policy to securing a settled environment for people to live in.

Michelle Clarke

Quotation
Consuming passions. Ivan Illich (b. 1926) Austrian born philosopher and theologian.
'In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves; the prisoners of addiction and prisoners of envy.

by Sceptic Fri Aug 24, 2007 20:57

It is not Government neglect that has burned out the houses in Moyross. It is the criminal elements of the residents there who have burned out their own neighbors houses. It is hard to ensure good neighborhoods for public housing in the face of such appaling and large scale criminality. There are various Government initiatives to address the situation.

by Jolly Red Giant - Socialist Party/CWI Fri Aug 24, 2007 21:55

The government and the local council dumped thousands of poor working class families into Moyross with little or no infrastructure, facilities, jobs or hope (just as they did in Southill in the years before). You better believe the government are to blame for the deterioration of this area.

by Sceptic Sat Aug 25, 2007 14:30

It was actually high standard public housing by European or US comparisons and the facilities were no worse than those in hundreds of other housing projects around the country. You can't blame the State for everything.

by Kevin T. Walsh - Social Justice and Ethics Sat Aug 25, 2007 17:47

Skeptic

I would suggest the website given by Jonah i.e. www.unhchr.ch/housing/fs21.htm - aspirational perhaps but at least an equitable foundation is provided.

Michelle

Good article on housing. I wish people would appreciate a bit of intelligent logic on this site, sometimes.

Every Irish citizen under the Constitution has a right to housing in their country (Ireland). This is not fiction, it is fact.

Now Skeptic replied giving a true PD response. Everybody is criminally minded that is except them and of course Bertie's tent. Well now that is fiction not fact. If I recall before the PD's were decimated in the election, they had a very loud barking Minister for Justice, Mickey McDoggie - I think Bertie returned him to the Pound in Ranelagh.

Now Moyross.
The people in Moyross are decent people. There is only between 7 and 9% of criminal elements in the area and these people, given the chance, can be part of society but LACK of education, infrastructure, and deplorable housing conditions (these houses have been built over 35 years ago.....shame to the Irish Government). You see skeptic, there is more of the criminally minded in Bertie's tent than in Moyross.

Here are the facts:
7% are in Limerick
100% are criminally minded -- Bertie's tent.
Yes, there is a drug problem in Moyross, there is a gun problem and there is a knife problem but there is also 'sheer raw poverty; undernourished children; because of lack of Government services and public interest. Here we are living in the most affluent period of Irish history and yet 85,000 children in Ireland go to bed under nourished every night.
Yes, in Dublin 4, there is also a drug problem. There is definitely a knife problem with two young men dead in the last two months, one young man on Waterloo Road, and one young man in Sandymount.

The Judges, barristers, doctors, corporate elites; their daughters and sons are keeping the drugs industry afloat in Moyross and North Dublin. These privileged kids in Dublin 4 can afford to buy at any price. The blind eye is turned because of who Daddy is so they are not the ones heading for Mountjoy jail; they are sent to private rehab in London - God Bless Mummy and Daddy.

I have worked in Moyross in my spare time - I was trying to get a boxing club, up and running some years ago. The kids were fabulous kids just like any other Irish children. They referred to the Gardai as pigs because they knew no better. Some of these children had left school at the age of 11. Moyross does not want a heavy handed approach, it needs care and tolerance. You see Skeptic - I am just espanding Michelle's point but just one more for you - you said in your reply there are new government initiatives. I ask Where? Whatever you are on Skeptic, perhaps you can post me some. I get the scent of Bob Dylan 'Blowing in the wind'. just like you, perhaps.

Fianna Fail have a very strong element of criminality. Let us see Haughey; Burke; Flynn; Lawlor; even Bertie is to appear before the Tribunal next month.

Now the Tent - Michael Bailey faces DPP charges shortly on planning issues while the people in Moyross are watching this on TV and they no doubt are wondering why the Gardai are not being called into the Tent. It is always Moyross, they say. I wonder why?

Yes, there has been a Celtic Tiger - there has been economic growth but surely the social growth is but an illusion.

Quotation
The Stuff of Dictatorship
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) US President

'True individual freedom cannot exist without economic activity and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made..........'

by Sceptic Sat Aug 25, 2007 19:41

I’m not suggesting that there should not be social policy – I am with FDR on that one. Your work in the area is praiseworthy but nothing I wrote has anything got do with any party position - it seems rather facile analysis to be causally linking house burnings in Moyross with the FF tent. I am not in favour of people using narcotics in Dublin 4 or anywhere else. I am suggesting that the automatic levelling of 100% of blame on the State is misguided. You basically have people running out the residents and destroying the vacant houses along with a gangland culture and LA scale murder rates. This is egregious criminality which is likely to have a multi stranded cause of which the level of resources may not be a major one. Leftist commentators can be too quick to blame the State for everything.

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice and Ethics Sun Aug 26, 2007 22:27

I read what you are writing and I partially grasp the message.

However, the issue is the dereliction to houses in estates and the beyond comprehension policy of Government departments, to ignore it.

Yes, criminality must be dealt with but for the remainder of the people that live in these housing estates, let our State respect them. There ought to be policy for a 'team' to enter the estate and as soon as possible get the house back to a habitable level and move in new tenants.

I think they have this kind of programme in England - experiment.
The team includes a trained psychologist to deal with the human being factor.

The Franciscans are moving to Moyross. This ought to enable a new sense of communication and this includes via the internet.

We can only wait and see.

Quotation
'When the rich wage war, its the poor who die'
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) French writer and Philosopher

Skeptic - I don't get the point about mixing D4 and Moyross.......Those in Dublin 4 who pay over the odds to others say in Moyross......are accountable morally, ethically and otherwise, for the havoc they wreak buying illegal drugs and promoting their use in affluent areas. We are talking after all about the free market.......the cost is lives.

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice and Ethics Mon Sep 10, 2007 20:02

The Government are breaking the mould. They are establishing two different agencies with an agenda of tackling the dire social distress caused over nearly 3 decades in Moyross, Limerick and South hill.

A challgenge for all concerned.

I hope part of their policy is to implement a policy that when a house is burnt out that it can be renovated and let out to new tenants within 3 months.

The Ballymun plan appears to have worked well so hopefully these agencies will access all the data now available and move forward.

Now that Greens are in Government, it might be good to get a copy of the new CIF magazine and encourge people to access it. No doubt it will have the up-to-date information about how to effectively get the Maximum from the Green initiative e.g. water and heating from panels on the roof......

The Green areas ought to be designed in a way to have access to horses, ponies and even a kennel for dog mind purposes.....

The Rowntree Research in the UK is worth accessing. It deals with drugs; housing; social housing, community generation etc. I am sure the Franciscans who are moving to Moyross will know of the Rowntree research.

Michelle Clarke

Blasphemy
'All great truths begin as blasphemies'

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Irish born playwright

Change
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Gandhi