Lisburn councillor: Home Office must stop housing asylum seekers in 'most deprived' areas of Northern Ireland

DUP representative Paul Porter made the call after obtaining a leaked document that he says pinpoints the postcodes where homes have been bought by a private firm on behalf of the UK Home Office to house asylum seekers.

He has raised concerns that the purchase of these homes is driving up rents across Lisburn and parts of Belfast.The UK has a legal commitment to support people seeking asylum, while it makes a decision on their asylum claim, by providing financial support and ‘dispersal’ accommodation.

The Conservative government signed regional contracts with three private companies in 2019 – Serco, Mears and Clearsprings – who were tasked with helping to house asylum seekers. Mears has bought a number of homes in Northern Ireland as part of that project.

Reacting to the 2023 figures he obtained, Cllr Porter said: “We are not in this all together. It’s the areas that already have major issues with homelessness, housing, educational underachievement and health inequalities. The Home Office and Mears have purposely assigned these areas to deal with the Government’s flawed immigration policy.

“They don’t want to answer why they have targeted the most deprived areas in Belfast to buy and rent their properties.”

Cllr Porter has raised the issue of Mears and rising rents at Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council previously when local reps were briefed by Housing Executive boss Grainia Long.

Ms Long outlined a number of different reason for rising rents. She told the November meeting that pre-Covid the Housing Executive “were placing about 3,000 households into temporary accommodation a year in Northern Ireland”, but after the pandemic they are placing about 11,000 households into temporary accommodation.

She added there were “three aspects for the growth in demand” – the pandemic related sofa surfing and people having to live in a bubble; the exodus of a number of private landlords during the cost of living crisis which left a lot of people homeless and a “much smaller group of people, are those who came to Northern Ireland had sought and received leave to remain and we have seen a small growth in that demand”.

Ms Long said: “It is the case that the growth in Mears portfolio has had an impact on the housing market here. It must have done, you can’t suddenly grow a portfolio of that size.”

A spokesperson for NIHE said: “We are experiencing housing supply issues across all tenures and all areas of Northern Ireland.

“To assist in meeting our statutory duties to those experiencing homelessness, we currently have access to over 5,200 units of temporary accommodation across Northern Ireland, 360 of these units were brought in to use in the past year.”A Mears spokesperson said: “Mears accommodation in Northern Ireland is in connection with the UK Home Office Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts. Any Freedom of Information enquiries in relation to these contracts should be directed to the UK Home Office as they are the relevant public body.”

The UK Home office declined to comment following the postcode leak, but provided ‘background guidance’ on the matter.