To ask the Minister for Communities, pursuant to AQW 14955/17-22, to detail the steps taken by her Department to (i) reduce the number of (a) applicants; and (b) applicants in housing stress in East Londonderry; and (ii) increase the number of allocations to applicants.

I have set out an ambitious and long-term plan to increase the supply of social and also affordable housing and to reduce housing stress. My plan includes:

Changing the status of the landlord part of the Housing Executive so that it can borrow, invest in its homes and ultimately start building again;

Bringing forward a consultation on the future of the Housing Executive House Sales Scheme, as soon as practicably possible in order to protect the current supply of social housing;

Reintroducing ring-fencing of the new build Social Housing Development Programme (SHDP) to prioritise areas of highest housing need.

Introducing reform of the social housing allocations system;

Ensuring the Housing Executive prioritises adaptations;

Developing new ways to help people into home ownership and continuing to support shared ownership schemes, such as, Co-Ownership;

Expanding the rental options available by introducing intermediate rent to provide an additional supply of good quality, well managed and maintained homes, which are affordable for lower income families;

Working proactively to prioritise actions to improve our response to homelessness with a continued focus on prevention rather than management; and

Developing a Housing Supply Strategy to provide a framework for addressing those whole system issues that impact on housing supply and the delivery of the right volume and types of homes to meet our changing housing need and demand.

In the shorter term the key action taken to reduce the numbers of Housing Applicants, including those in Housing Stress; and to increase the number of allocations, is to deliver new social housing through the Social Housing Development Programme.

In the East Derry Parliamentary constituency there have been 52 new social housing units completed to-date in 2020/21. These units are detailed in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Social housing completions to-date in 2020/21 in East Derry Parliamentary Constituency

A further 132 new social housing units are under construction. These units are detailed in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Social housing units under construction in East Derry Parliamentary Constituency

A total of 95 units are currently programmed to start as part of the Social Housing Development Programme (SHDP) 2020/21 – 2022/23. These units are detailed in Table 3 below.

Table 3: Social housing units programmed to start 2020/21 – 2022/23 in East Derry Parliamentary Constituency