To buy my first house two minutes down the street from traveller housing initiative?

[MelMar1]

Please give me advice.
I’m sale agreed on a new build house in Dublin . I found out that there is a new traveller housing initiative going in right across the road from me. Please don’t say I’m being snobby I’m really not. I’ve just heard stories of anti social behaviour etc. I know there’s always some lovely people but I’m nervous.

Do I give the house up because of this? It’s a substantial amount of houses for the traveller scheme all together - six very large detached four bedroom homes. It is two minutes walk from me. I drove up to the development to see and the traveller housing initiative is not in front of me directly as I thought. It is not in front of or behind me but about 2 minutes walk down the road. I can only see gable end of one of the houses from mine. Not directly facing.
I need to sign contacts in 2 days and I am so torn.
Otherwise it’s perfect house for me. With this information are you saying yes or no?

The point is, the attitudes shown on this thread towards an entire group of people lead to hate crimes. Look at the sentences! Look at history. We should be doing everything we can to stamp out racism. It’s never acceptable however you try to justify it to yourself. Change starts with recognising your biases and prejudices.

I won’t engage with you further because you keep trying to put words in my mouth- you’re not interested in genuine debate.

@JollyGreenSleeves would you be willing to buy or live beside one of these places?

They are now very close to seeing eye to eye.

A close family member of mine was murdered by a traveller. Completely unprovoked. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 2 (yes, that’s right, 2) years. Shit sentencing is across the board.

I don’t know what the answer to all this. I naively used to think that providing travellers with specific sites they could use that would have access to proper waste disposal and toilet facilities would be enough, but from the experiences on here, it sounds like even when that happens, there is still trouble and mess.

Most of us know that not all travellers are the same as the ones being complained about, but it doesn’t get away from the fact that there is a significant amount that cause trouble. And for a lot of people that seems like a majority.

Op you'd be mad - and I can guess the previous people didn't have a loan fall through either!

No way don’t do it. (You know why the previous buyers loan ‘fell through’).

It will be a living nightmare, and you’ll be stuck there.

A very good friend of mine is very senior in the police, the most trouble they have where she’s based is because of them. They’re a rule amongst themselves.

@JollyGreenSleeves
It’s nothing to do with racism.

We are all allowed an opinion whether you like it or not, based on OUR EXPERIENCES.

And believe me they are not good experiences.

of course you're entitled to your opinion. This thread is >50% your opinion, over and over.

And people are entitled to say they think you're being blatantly, appallingly racist.

Free speech innit? Like Nigel says.

This is only very arguably, marginally, about "race". The Irish traveller population only decisively split from the 'settled' one a few hundred years ago at most. They still look indistinguishable. A member of the traveller community who gets a regular education, gets a regular job, mixes freely with regular people, etc, will only very exceptionally face prejudice. But large groups of travellers together, like the one described by OP, are objectively, factually, proven by any number of official statistics, hotbeds for all manner of very poor socio-economic outcomes and behaviours of the sort that most sensible people wouldn't want to be anywhere near.

Thanks for explaining. What do they mean by ‘culturally appropriate housing’ out of interest? How is the housing they provide culturally appropriate?

There isn't. Posts that don't go anywhere near as far as these, get deleated. I once said that our local schools were getting lessons in 'school stabber', lockdown etc, after the Southport stabbings, it got deleated, yet it had been covered by our local news, in the papers and it was actually happening. We can't point out that Islam means bigotry and sexism, without the thread dissappearing. I've had posts deleated that haven't broken talk guidelines, or have been racist. There's a lot of racism/breaking the Equality Act, on this thread.

Lots of travellers prefer to live in trailers, even if they're static. There is also a preference for shared outdoor space rather than individual gardens.

There is a small permanent site that I occasionally visit for work. Half a dozen static trailers with a communal outdoor space.

What a disgusting take. So by your logic, its much worse when a transwoman is murdered than it is when a woman is murdered, because their murder could be recorded as a hate crimes, but women don't get that same privilege?

There is a model example of a culturally appropriate scheme in Belfast, IIRC. The houses are built to look like static caravans, there is paddock spaces and stables to graze horses and it is a development exclusively for them. It's considered the gold standard. I'll see if I can find a picture online.

Not a good picture, but the only one I could find. It's 21 bungalows, this used to be a site where there were caravans and it was wholly inadequate and deemed a health hazard. This scheme has won awards and Travellers from all over the UK and Ireland go to visit it.

No. I know you got a little dopamine reward with your ‘gentle-parent’ comment, but you actually didn’t answer my question. How could OP have asked this specific question in a way that would’ve been acceptable to you? Would you have bought the house?

I have a colleague who specialises in Roma / Traveller literature/culture so I’ve learnt an awful lot from her over the years. They’re more likely to be victims than perpetrators of crime. They have been persecuted for centuries, lest we forget the Nazis also murdered hundreds of thousands of Romany people. They’re one of the most discriminated against groups in Britain. The stereotype stems from a small section of them committing crimes and the media blowing it up, there’s almost never any positive media.

It’s entirely up to you. One thing I would say is it might make it harder to sell if you want to move.

If you've got time to google the murder of children to make an anti-traveller point, you need to take a serious look at yourself.

So, so fucked up.