To ask the Minister for Communities whether the Housing Executive has a responsibility to explore both social and private rental options when sourcing a property for a homeless tenant.

The NIHE offers tailored advice and assistance to applicants, assessing their long-term housing needs as well as any immediate housing issues and providing a range of tenure-neutral housing options and choices.

These options may include Social Housing, Private Rented Accommodation or Home Ownership, with the primary aim to help applicants make informed choices.

While it has been custom and practice for the NIHE to discharge the statutory homeless duty in the social housing sector, existing legislation also allows for the homelessness duty to be discharged in the private sector.

Proposal 4 (NIHE can meet their duty to homeless applicants on a tenure-neutral basis) of the Fundamental Review of Social Housing Allocations aims to explore options to enable NIHE, where appropriate, to meet its homelessness duty by securing suitable accommodation in the private rented sector, subject to certain safeguards.

For instance, such accommodation will be reasonable for the household to occupy; of the appropriate standard; and available for a reasonable period of time.