This year a social housing scheme is being considered for the world’s most prestigious architecture award, The Stirling Prize. Niall McLaughlin’s Darbishire Place in London’s Whitechapel was built on a vacant site as part of a social housing scheme that sees the building currently host 13 families. It’s in the running for the Royal Institute of British Architect’s award alongside London penthouses worth millions of pounds and costly extensions to historical monuments. Placing a social housing scheme in this pool of architectural giants marked a recognition of the fact that community space and housing is in a state of crisis that deserves the attention of the brightest minds and the application of the bravest ideas on a global level.
It’s hard to write an unbiased piece about a subject that summons up such confused and diffuse anger in Dublin, where the closure of creative spaces, a punitively topsy-turvy rent market, and empty spaces mired by artificial blockades continue to be our experiences of an unimaginative and an unjust urban and social planning.
‘The two things you hear repeatedly in the North Inner City, are firstly, a need for community space, and secondly, anger towards Dublin City Council. These two things come up over and over again,’ says Seamus Farrell, the spiritual leader of Irish Housing Network, the network of housing groups that has taken over the disused hostel at 38 Bolton Street.
The take over of the building on Bolton Street marks the first time since the late 1970s that a group of activists has taken over a building illegally for the purposes of housing homeless families. ‘The building is an example. It’s about showing up Dublin City Council. We take a building ourselves, put it in good condition, fix it up, show that it can be done, even with very limited resources like ours,’ Farrell explains.
Bolt House
The DCC-owned building was a hostel for the homeless until three years ago when it was closed down by DCC who claimed it was ‘unsafe and unsuitable to continue to occupy,’ and the existing residents were re-accommodated within other homeless services. While it was in operation, Bolton House’s six bedrooms accommodated up to 17 individual adults.
After discovering it while searching for spaces that might alleviate the crisis, the Irish Housing Network contacted DCC to see if it might be possible for them to take over the building. Their proposal was refused, and within a couple of weeks, on Monday 6th July, activists occupied the building.
DCC made contact with the IHN demanding they leave the building immediately, explaining to them that there would be an injunction should they fail to do so, and offering up ‘a potential unwritten partnership to work on other buildings,’ says Seamus Farrell, a negotiation tactic the IHN didn’t think much of. The July 10th ultimatum came and went without an injunction, perhaps because this is ‘a bad battle for them,’ as Farrell suggests, ‘they haven’t come down hard on us yet because of the public support we’ve been getting.’
Both Farrell and Rosi Leonard, another member of the IHN working at Bolt House, believe that Bolt will prove a sore point to DCC because it’s in the north inner city – ‘a development wasteland to the council’ – and because ‘the community taking control over space is a challenge to their authority’ and one they dread the most.
Homelessness and the accommodation crisis
The emergency with accommodation for homeless families and individuals had been coming to a boil for most of 2014, with the Simon Community and other voluntary groups issuing reports and warnings. But it was only with the death of homeless man Jonathan Corrie on Leinster House’s doorstep last December, that the problem gained a human face and story – and the public outcry was great. It prompted Minister for Environment Alan Kelly to issue press release after press conference stating that ‘ministerial directions should provide at least 500 homes for homeless households in the Dublin region,’ over the ensuing six months (this was January 31st), with directives that 50% of emergency accommodation should be given over to the most ‘vulnerable’.
Public talks were scheduled, meetings were had, and plans were drawn up – some including the suggestion to rehouse 200 homeless families in the once notorious and now much neglected O’Devaney Gardens. Another proposal saw the rehabilitation of a DCC owned building in the Pembroke Street area into emergency accommodation. The first proposal was strongly contested by the then Lord Mayor of Dublin Christy Burke, whilst the second proposal was opposed by local residents of the Dublin 2 Georgian heartland.
On the night of April 14th, the Dublin Region Housing Executive issued a ‘Spring Count on Rough Sleeping’ which recorded 105 people sleeping rough, a 38% decrease since the previous November when 168 people were counted. According to the report, a total of 1,872 adults were in emergency accommodation, up from 1,526 in November.
Vacant spaces, the builder’s trump card, and fire and safety
What Seamus Farrell and Rosi Leonard perceive as one of the greatest problems when talking about homeless accommodation with the council and the Ministry for the the Environment, is their unwillingness to look at the potential of vacant spaces instead of favouring building. ‘The housing policies currently drawn up serve to benefit landlords and get developers and builders back building. To me this is all not going to work,’ Farrell explains.
Fire and safety regulations are the reason given to cut short any suggestions around the rehabilitation of vacant spaces in Dublin, a phrase that’s become a battle cry for DCC and NAMA over the past few years.
Leonard points to the vast amount of insurance claims the council has had to pay out over the past ten years as a reason for this. But she also gives the example of the exception to the rule that was Granby Park, a rehabilitated empty site on Dominick Street run by Upstart, which was converted into a highly successful temporary community park and art space. In that case, DCC insured the space themselves, which in Leonard’s opinion proves that the ‘fire and safety excuse is far from water-tight.’
There are individuals within DCC who are actively reaching out and discussing the issues around communal space and homelessness with the communities that feel most abandoned – this much is undeniable. IHN points to the successful regeneration project of St. Michael’s Estate, saying that many good social housing initiatives have been implemented, but are quick to point out how long some of these projects ended up taking.
Rosi Leonard maintains that often times conversation around community space and vacant buildings can feel like ‘all talk’. ‘There are a huge amount of conversations, public talks, and meetings run by DCC about doing different things with vacant spaces, especially when it comes to creative spaces – but nothing ever gets implemented.’
The Irish Housing Network along with many other activist groups that have sprung up to fight the demise of creative spaces around Dublin, feel that DCC needs to be ‘shaken up’ out of their ‘conservatism.’ As Leonard insists, ‘there needs to be focus on implementing action on these vacant spaces rather than focus on building,’ particularly when the provision of emergency accommodation has come to a standstill because, as DCC told Totally Dublin via email, ‘the challenge remains that the level of families presenting to homeless services is not keeping a pace with the number of families that are moving out of homeless services and back into independent living.’
Conclusion
It is hard to see how decision-makers can be forced to act upon their good intentions when their chief purpose seems to be to neutralise the community’s anger. The terms and conditions of their brainstorms and talks should contain a clause about ‘No follow-ups intended’. Emergency action, such as has been taken by the Grangegorman squatters, and more recently by members of the IHN, seem to be the only way. What is harder still, is to comprehend the motivations behind DCC’s reluctance to enter into partnerships with groups willing to contribute resources and ideas for the sake of the cause – the inaction is what is most heartbreaking.
In Down And Out In Paris And London, George Orwell in one of his dramatic pronouncements says, ‘We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness. But don’t expect us to do anything about it.’ Perhaps it’s that distance and all the unpleasantness that needs to be resolved that stops DCC in its tracks and keeps it far from action.
Words: Roisin Agnew
Photos: Steve O’Connor
