HOMELESS?
I recall that I recently lambasted the outrageous claim made by Northern Ireland’s Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie that homelessness here was at an all time high. As usual this won me brickbats as the Minister’s words of wisdom were chosen in preference to mine. So, interesting to report that the number of people defined as “homeless” has DROPPED according to official figures by almost 2000 people. (In the Newsletter print copy yesterday but can't see it on-like.) So, I’m guessing that the “all-time” high levels of homelessness being spoken of but a week or so ago was just pure PR attention grabbing rubbish.
Furthermore, the source that Ritchie and her ilk uses for all this statistical data gathering is the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Now if anyone was to select an organisation which personifies public sector gross incompetence, the NIHE is it. So I repeat my suggestion that homelessness is NOT at an all-time high and that the source for gathering such information in the first instance is both statistically dubious and politically directed.
The idea that there are 21,000 people here that are homeless merits further examination. Housing stock has never been higher both in the private and public sector. There has been a massive increase in private properties as this area has boomed. But there are also thousands of empty Housing Executive properties, so that shortage does not lie there either. Furthermore, Northern Ireland has seen the same massive intake of eastern European immigrants as the rest of the UK and oddly enough they seem to have found accommodations. So, how is it that we have these alleged thousands of homeless? Might it be that some people choose to live this way? Are their issues causes by drugs and alcohol abuse, do you think?
Northern Ireland has a socialist administration that believes in spending to solve every problem. So it is that we will continually here about phantasms such as “record homelessness” “record child poverty” and then there is the “low wage employees” and guess what, there will be a succession of half-witted but calculating politicians all out to show how generous and good they are by spending OUR money. That’s why socialism is so evil, it takes away human dignity and absolves individual responsibility by substituting State munificence. The likes of Margaret Ritchie is a declared socialist, and she is proud of this. But there are others like me who see socialism as crippling to a healthy society and who appreciate that rather than a rights-based society – which Northern Ireland now is - we should have responsibility based society.
David Vance
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Reader Comments (2)
Good post David. The homless in NI are mostly addicts, but it's not pc to mention this inconvenient truth. And there are loads of vacant Housing Executive properties anyway, so no-one should be sleeping rough.
The homeless here are I think mostly alcohol or other substance addicts too. Which makes the word itself very inadequate.
The people in Sichuan, China are "homeless"
Someone who can't or won't hold a job and is addicted is in another category altogether. His lack of a home is probably his smallest problem.