FCT 20110525-12 - IFI Building Integration - Shared Neighbourhood - Jennifer Hawthorne NIHE

Forum for Cities in Transition: Building Integration in Housing Jennifer Hawthorne Head of the Housing Executive’s Community Cohesion Unit 25th May 2011

Context
Housing Executive established 40 years ago as housing allocations highly controversial
From day one we had to deal with highly volatile situation (e.g. 60 000 people forced to leave their homes between 1969-73 and 14 000 homes destroyed in 1972 as people fled to areas they felt safe in)
Housing became deeply segregated, particularly in social housing sector. This continues to present day

Context
Today 90% residential segregation, 94% in Belfast (Source: NIHE “Mapping Segregation Report”)
Continue to have incidents of intimidation resulting in homelessness. “We became used to picking up the pieces of conflict and segregation”
88 Peace walls in Belfast
YET things are changing slowly. Most people (80%)would like to live in mixed neighbourhoods

Shared Neighbourhood Programme
Unique new pilot programme established 3 years ago in order to work within established NIHE housing estates and have greater impact than just small scale new build schemes
Followed the model of existing shared estates such as Springfarm and Ballynafeigh
IFI funding of £868k allowed programme to be delivered
This is a Good Relations programme delivered through the communities. Not to the communities

Shared Neighbourhood Programme
From it’s inception in 2008, 30 estates have agreed to participate in this new programme across the whole of NI
It now includes 60,000 people
It has established the concept that ‘sharing is good’ and shared neighbourhoods are good places to live
Shortlisted for Housing Heroes award
Extremely positive independent evaluation
Aim is to continue the programme and mainstream it

SNP Phase 2 Evaluation Quotes
“ the shared neighbourhood approach is really valued. The connection to the Cohesion Team is worth more than the £8k budget”
“ its about sustaining estates, because its with the Housing Executive, they won’t just walk away from us”
“ I saw the SNP as a success, it sparked and idea and the community took up the challenge and ran with it”
“ its an interesting thing for the Housing Executive to do. They don’t have to do it...you might expect CRC or OFM. The Housing Executive is like an honest broker...its a good place for it...they should do it, but they don’t have to”

Conclusion
Much still needs to be done. We will:
Continue to develop the approach led out by the Shared Neighbourhood Programme and weave it in to mainstream NIHE policy
Put Good Relations at the heart of social housing by training key NIHE staff
Extend the SNP work into hard to reach communities and work in new estates on good relations projects and training
We need to demonstrate why developing better community cohesion is" a good thing” to do in order to get more agencies and Departments involved in practical programmes

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FCT 20110525-12 - IFI Building Integration - Shared Neighbourhood - Jennifer Hawthorne NIHE

by Forum for Cities in Transition on Jun 13, 2011

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FCT 20110525-12 - IFI Building Integration - Shared Neighbourhood - Jennifer Hawthorne NIHE — Presentation Transcript