Since January 2024 Take Back the City activists have been organising clinics and other sessions to work with people at the sharp end of the housing crisis.  Together people have documented their housing circumstances, held their landlords and housing authorities directly to account and collectively monitored the response.

This work has complemented ongoing efforts to more generally track rising levels of homelessness and housing stress across the north and their impact on particular groups such as children and young people. 

Over this period, complaints were submitted from at least 98 families comprising 317 people, as well as collective complaints from groups.

The family complaints included:

• 74 primarily directed to the NI Housing Executive

• 12 primarily regarding Mears (operating under its Asylum Accommodation Support Contract with the UK Home Office)

• 6 primarily directed towards specific housing associations

• the remainder, private rental (it is important to note that some of the letters directed primarily towards the Housing Executive had a private rental component, for example people seeking FDA status after eviction by a private landlord)

More information can be found here.