More investment needed to tackle 'largest ever' social housing waiting list in NI

Social housing providers in Northern Ireland have welcomed a further £24m investment as they aim to build more than 2,000 new homes a year.

The social housing waiting list is the biggest that it has been on record with The Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA) saying that much more investment and funding is needed to cut this down.

It has said that while it welcomes a further £24m to the social housing development programme budget from the NI Executive in the autumn monitoring allocation, this is still below the level needed to tackle large waiting lists.

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Speaking after the announcement, Seamus Leheny, Chief Executive of NIFHA, said “The social housing waiting list is the biggest as it has ever been, with more families joining it each month. We have a housing crisis, and the new build social housing budget we have been dealing with so far this year was the lowest it has been in generations.

“The delivery of new social housing has been led by housing associations, who have been providing the match funding each year to build almost 2000 new homes, and have proven that this is the best model for delivery. The fact is that the budget allocation to the Social Housing Development Programme needs to be increased - we simply are not being given enough NI Executive funding to build the number of social homes we need.

“This additional funding will allow housing associations to build around 1,400 new homes this year, and that is welcome, but we are still far below the level of investment we need to be at to start to make some impact on the waiting list.

"While this additional investment is positive, waiting for in-year allocations for capital works projects is not a sustainable way of tackling housing. We also need to see exactly how the additional funding for NI Water can be strategically invested to support housing new build. Housing Associations now have a matter of months to progress 800 additional units, which will mean we need to see support from the Department for Communities, NI Housing Executive, Northern Ireland Water and the planning department from the 11 councils to help ensure that these can be successfully progressed.

“To deal with this housing crisis we need clear, multi year budgets, with annual targets in excess of 2000 new homes. And hand in hand with this, we need to also see immediate investment in waste water infrastructure, particularly in areas of high demand such as Belfast and Derry, as without this we will not be in a position to complete many housing projects.”

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