Housing Precarity and Racialised Space: Insights from Muslim Communities and Local Authority Staff in Ireland.

Ireland’s housing landscape was severely impacted by the 2008 economic crash due to the global financial crisis and the country's credit-fuelled oversupply of property (Grotti et al., 2018). Since this collapse, a cluster of other factors, including impediments in housing supply, limited mortgage options, a lack of affordable or social housing have contributed to the current housing crisis, as indeed have decades of neoliberal policy decisions (Hearne 2023). In real terms, the housing and homelessness crisis in Ireland has resulted in thousands of individuals and families experiencing distress and precarious conditions concerning their right to secure shelter. As of April 2024, in-excess of 14,000 people were recorded as living in emergency accommodation, underscoring the severe homelessness crisis exacerbated by a deficit in properties, particularly of affordable and social housing (Bowers, 2024; Conneely, 2024). Racial inequalities, although at times covert and subtle, are among the most persistent discriminatory factors in shaping the social domain of housing. Ireland’s housing crisis has contributed to the reproduction of such inequalities affecting racialised communities. This paper draws on extensive qualitative research with Irish local authority staff (n=69) and with members of Ireland’s Muslim communities (n=193) to explore their perspectives and lived experiences in the context of accessing accommodation. Using housing precarity (Clair et al., 2019; Lombard, 2023; Waldron, 2022) and racialised space (Itaoui 2016; Najib 2021) as our conceptual frameworks, we investigate experiences of discrimination in/accessing housing and how these are addressed by local authority staff. We demonstrate the manner in which members of Muslim communities in Ireland experience hostility/discrimination in/accessing accommodation, adding an additional layer to the precarity felt by others seeking housing in Ireland. We evidence processes within local authorities that, although well intended, in a context where a race-evasive approach is institutionally promoted, risk the creation of segregated communities.