Family still in temporary home years after racist attack

A family forced to flee their north Belfast home after a racist attack are still living in temporary emergency accommodation three years on.

The Idris family, including their nine-year-old son, were forced to flee Tiger’s Bay in 2014.

The Housing Executive organised temporary accommodation in Grainne House in the New Lodge, but three years on, they are still there.

The family, who originally fled the conflict in their native Sudan in 2012, now have two more children – the youngest just three weeks old.

But they feel their lives are on hold as they wait to be allocated permanent accommodation.

According to the Housing Executive, the family did not reach the threshold for intimidation points as “their home was not destroyed or seriously damaged, nor was the family at serious and imminent risk of being killed or seriously injured”.

A statement from the Housing Executive added the areas where the family want to be housed are “those of high housing demand with low housing turnover”.

It further stated that it had outlined other options in areas of lesser housing demand and housing options in the private rented sector, but in each case, staff were told the family were not interested.

However, Mohammed Idris told UTV: “We can’t choose areas where we don’t feel safe."

The human rights group Participation and the Practice of Rights insists the system is broken and new social housing is required as a matter of urgency.

Seán Brady, from the organisation said: “There are 12,000 on the waiting list in Belfast – 6,000 of them are in housing stress and 3,000 of them are seen as homeless – and they build something like 500 homes in the last year to deal with that.

“You can’t solve a housing crisis without building homes.”