Member's statement: Housing Crisis

Member's statement by Mr Gerry Carroll on 16 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

16 September 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Housing Crisis

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5110898

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The escalating housing crisis took a dark turn over the summer months, and it needs to be challenged and called out. We saw the Housing Executive and the PSNI step up their authoritarian response to the housing crisis in an attempt to evict people from family homes in my constituency. We should be clear that nobody should be evicted from their home, especially when no alternative housing or accommodation is provided. It is even more cruel that it is being done by the very organisation that is supposed to prevent homelessness and to help people when they are homeless: the Housing Executive. In one situation, we had the police show up outside the home of a constituent of mine, just off the Falls Road, to evict him. At least six police officers showed up at 7.00 am to physically and aggressively remove that young man from his home against his will. That is really dark and dangerous stuff. Not too far up the road from his house, we saw the Housing Executive and the police try to evict a grandmother from her family home just off the Springfield Road. The police showed up with the intention of removing and evicting that person and her family but were met with peaceful community resistance against that form of police violence and intimidation. It says a lot about the priorities of the state and the PSNI that, when we have racist, far right pogroms, fascists threatening to burn out asylum seekers from hotels and fascists roaming the streets and threatening migrants and anybody of colour, who faces the repression from the state? It is the people who are trying to fight and stand against homelessness. I commend all the housing activists in west Belfast, in particular, and beyond who stand against that intimidation and that form of state violence. I commend the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU), Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) and every other organisation, my party colleagues and other community activists, who continue to stand against homelessness and people being forcibly evicted. The obvious question is this: where are the Executive parties? Where is the First Minister on the question? I hear nothing from her. Where is the Justice Minister on this? Where is the Communities Minister, with his terrible approach to housing? He says nothing while people are being evicted forcibly from their homes. Where are the Opposition? They have been silent on the question as well. The state should be building homes and reducing and cutting rents. I say, "Shame on those who have evicted tenants. Shame on the people in the Housing Executive who are carrying out that strategy". I call for it to end.

449 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:12 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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