Homeless Connect welcomes the return of the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly as we continue to deal with the profound impact two years of a lack of devolved institutions has had on people experiencing homelessness and the organisations that support them.
Amongst the more pressing issues in in-trays on government’s return will be the acute level of homelessness across Northern Ireland and the lack of social housing supply.
The era of stop-start government has had a damaging impact on the ability to give sustained attention to how we respond to homelessness.
We have strategies that can make a difference to end homelessness, to support people experiencing homelessness, and to increase housing supply – but they lack the resources required for implementation.
Looking across the water, we lag behind other jurisdictions when it comes to progressive legislative change that can make a real difference to the lives of people at risk or experiencing homelessness, and per our recent open letter with the Chartered Institute of Housing to the Permanent Secretary for the Department of Finance, proposed departmental budget cuts may force vulnerable groups to compete for limited funding, exacerbating existing challenges.
Homeless Connect’s 2022 manifesto for the Assembly election included ten commitments we asked parties to make in their manifestos.
There has been very little progress on these, but with a new Assembly we will continue to push for transformative change to end homelessness – along with our membership and people with lived experience.
We highlight three specific asks which we believe an incoming Executive needs to urgently consider and deliver:
A standalone, specific housing outcome in the Programme for Government 2022-2027 with emphasis on the prevention and reduction of homelessness.
It is vital that the political parties making up the next Executive deliver on a standalone housing outcome with indicators focused on homelessness in the next Programme for Government.
All of the Executive parties have indicated that they support the introduction of such an outcome and we expect this to be delivered in the next Programme for Government.
Addressing the difficulties we are facing in this space must be a top priority.
Increasing the Supporting People budget to ensure people have access to the right type of support they need, when they need it.
The key funding streams for homelessness services, the Supporting People Budget and the Homelessness Services Budget, are both under huge pressure.
While the level of need for housing support and homelessness prevention projects has risen, the level of funding seeking this end has not.
Our sector has struggled to recruit and retain staff for many years amidst funding freezes and cuts. Valuable projects like the Homelessness Prevention Fund were stopped due to increasing households needing access to temporary accommodation.
The Executive collectively needs to ensure the sector has the resources it needs to truly prevent and reduce homelessness.
Increasing investment for new social and genuinely affordable housing. Simply put, you cannot prevent and reduce homelessness without an adequate supply of genuinely affordable and social housing.
There is a systemic and structural gap between the number of new social homes which can be built and the number of households joining the social housing waiting list each year.
The last Executive produced a housing supply strategy which could not be implemented without an Executive in place. This new Executive needs to collectively sign off on the strategy and ensure it has the resources to succeed.
Homeless Connect and our membership believe that real and progressive change is possible. What we need is the political will and investment to make change happen.
We urge this newly formed Executive to join us on our journey to end homelessness.