Accessing social housing takes Catholics in Northern Ireland six months longer than Protestants, a newly released study says.
Where Protestants wait about nine months to be placed in social housing, Catholics wait 15 months on average, the report from the Equality Commission says.
The report – ‘Statement on Key Inequalities in Housing and Communities in Northern Ireland’ analysed social housing waiting lists for 2004-2009 and for 2013/14.
It says these show Catholics experienced “the longest median waiting times for social housing at the point of allocation in Northern Ireland”.
While the wait for social housing increased for all groups over these periods, the report notes “more substantive” increases were seen in households identified as Catholic or ‘other’.
In this respect, between 2004 and 2009 the average waiting list time for Catholic households was eight months, compared with six months for ‘other religion’ households and six months for Protestants.
But by 2013/14, the reports says the wait had nearly doubled for Catholics to 15 months, while ‘other religion’ households had more than doubled to 13 months. The wait for Protestants had increased by a third to nine months.
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