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Intimidation by paramilitaries left 168 households in Northern Ireland homeless from April to September last year, official new statistics show.
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) accepted a total of 6,818 households as homeless over the period, out of 9,673 presenting themselves as homeless.
All forms of intimidation, including paramilitarism and anti-social behaviour, or intimidation on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation, were behind 207 new homeless cases. Paramilitarism was responsible for 168 of these cases.
“Accommodation not reasonable” was the most common reason for households becoming homeless, cited in 2,131 cases – with more than half of these relating to people with a disability.
Another 1,256 households were accepted as homeless because of a sharing breakdown or family dispute.
The figures were released by Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities today as the first in a new series of detailed homelessness statistics, and so cannot be compared with previous years.
Authorities discharged 6,392 homeless households over the period – meaning they were rehoused or refused three reasonable offers of accommodation.
Of the 6,818 households accepted as homeless, 5,300 were placed on the housing waiting list, 660 were given a housing association tenancy and 767 were given a NIHE tenancy. The rest either went into private accommodation or refused three reasonable housing offers.
As of 10 January, there were 2,065 households in temporary accommodation in Northern Ireland, including 2,433 children.
A total of 56 households have been in temporary accommodation for more than five years.