THE North West Migrants Forum is to seek a meeting with Communities Minister Gordon Lyons following his announcement that intimidation points will be removed from social housing applications.
Under current legislation the NI Housing Executive (NIHE) awards intimidation points to social housing applicants who are at serious risk and need immediate rehousing. People who face intimidation can get 200 points.
Many of those who receive the points have been intimidated from their homes by paramilitaries (Source: Intimidation Pionts).
But as of April, intimidation points will be removed, although those already awarded them will retain them.
The Communities Minister said his aim was to ‘level the playing field for victims of violence’.
“It has long been a source of frustration to me, along with many others in the chamber, that the selection scheme treats victims of violence differently, based on the cause of that violence,” he told the Assembly.
“Someone targeted because of their ethnic identity receives more points than someone targeted because of their gender.
“Regardless of causation, victims will be assessed using the same criteria within the housing selection scheme operated by the NIHE.”
From our point of view (NWMF), we firstly take issue with Mr Lyons’ choice of words. By stating that families targeted because of their ethnic identity receive more points than someone targeted because of their gender creates a false and unnecessary comparison between the two.
We do appreciate that there are issues with how intimidation points work in practice, including the fact that victims of domestic abuse are not entitled to them.
But we would argue that rather than ‘level the playing field’ by punishing all, a more suitable solution would be to extend eligibility to all victims of intimidation, including those impacted by domestic abuse.

We have witnessed time and again individuals and families forced to leave their accommodation due to racial attack, threat or graffiti.
One has to look no further than the unrest that erupted in Belfast last summer and indeed in Ballykelly in August when anti-migrant slogans were daubed on homes there.
In such instances intimidation points were a lifeline.
At a time when hostile acts against those of a minority ethnic background are at an all-time high, we would urge Minister Lyons to reflect on his statement and to reconsider his decision to remove intimidation points from social housing applications.
In light of this week’s development, we will be seeking a meeting with him to discuss this matter.
There are organisations out there who will agree with the removal of intimidation points and we take their views on board.

But, as stated by our partners in the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), intimidation points are one of the few indicators we have in Northern Ireland around the actual scale of the problem.
Director of CAJ, Daniel Holder, said: “It is staggering that the minister’s response to clear gaps in protections against intimidation is to ‘level down’ and remove the protections from everyone and spin it as some sort of equality initiative.
“If this decision stands, one impact of it will be for paramilitary intimidation to go on even more under the radar. The data from the intimidation points scheme was one of the few places that highlighted the scale of the problem.
“The UN anti-racism committee last summer raised the alarm about paramilitary involvement in racist housing intimidation and called on Stormont ministers to ‘adopt robust measures to prevent and combat paramilitary racist violence and intimidation against ethnic minorities and migrants in Northern Ireland, systematically collect information on these acts of intimidation’.
“In conflict with this the minister is instead removing a rehousing scheme that covered victims of racist and other forms of housing intimidation.”