To ask the Minister for Communities, pursuant to AQW 14955/17-22, for her assessment of the significant increase in the number of applicants for social housing and people in housing stress in East Londonderry in the year from December 2019 to December 2020.

The Housing Executive has advised that following the first lockdown in March 2020, changes to the annual renewals process and procedures were made to accommodate the COVID-19 restrictions. These changes remained in place in December 2020 and may have resulted in a number of applicants being retained on the Waiting List, who would otherwise have been removed under normal operational activity.

Due to the PHA and Government restrictions, the work that the Housing Executive could complete during the first lockdown was restricted to emergency repairs only, which created a backlog for re-letting of properties. Although exempt from current restrictions, the latest lockdown has again impacted its ability to maintain normal services. New-build work has also been affected, meaning fewer new homes have been available to allocate in the same time frame.

Both the back-log of re-lets and decrease in available new build for allocations has undoubtedly resulted in a number of applicants remaining on the Waiting List during the pandemic who would otherwise have been rehoused and therefore removed from the list.