The New Housing Bill: What it may change
It was recently announced that there will be a new bill put forward by the Department for Communities which will tackle public housing reform. We want to have a look at what that bill will tackle, the existing issues in public housing and where inspiration for this bill may have come from. Before that, let's establish how an individual gets public housing. While an overview of the system as a whole could be done, it would be better to see how the housing process works for the applicants as many of the issues in public housing can be seen there.
-How the system currently works
The first step in the process of applying for public housing starts by filling out a form which explains what your current situation is. In Northern Ireland, we do this using a points system divided into four sections: Intimidation, chances of homelessness, housing conditions and applicant’s health. Each section will deal with a specific set of circumstances and allocate points depending on how bad those circumstances are. If you attain more points then you are viewed as needing social housing more than those with fewer points and will be moved up the waiting list. Intimidation points however do serve a strange function in the current makeup of the points system, more can be read in a recently released article here: https://www.beyondni.com/articles-1/intimidation-points-and-social-housing. Additionally, if your living situation can be classed as homeless, then the NIHE is obliged to provide you with temporary housing arrangements which will prevent you from living on the street.
The application will also ask where you would prefer to be housed. Wait time can depend on the area applied for as you will see differing results due to more congested regions having longer wait times. You may also choose which landlord you wish to go with, as there are multiple housing associations available. Some people have to wait years to find housing, this is why there is an additional feature with the points system which allocates 2 points every year an applicant is on the waiting list (maxed out at 10 points).
When you are finally offered a place, you will be offered three houses. If one of the options is favourable to the applicant, they may move in. Now that you are living in the property a countdown begins until you will be able to buy the property outright for a discounted price, with the minimum amount of time being 5 years.
-What is going wrong with the system
First off is the waiting list. At the moment there are reportedly 38,000 waiting for public housing with 88,000 currently using housing executive public housing. As of now, the average wait for a house is a year even though there are cases where people have waited decades for houses, with a year being an optimistic wait time. One of the causes of this has been the ability for those using public housing to buy the property (known as the Right to Buy scheme). When an individual buys a public house, it becomes private property, reducing the stock of public housing available for use by others in need. According to a report done by The Detail, in the past four decades 123,000 homes have been bought using the Right to Buy scheme. On top of that, not enough social housing is built and most private housing is not affordable for those who apply for public housing. Due to a lack of affordable housing, 26,000 people are currently in housing stress, which effectively means their costs for basic housing are very close to their overall household income. 74% of those in housing stress are also considered to be homeless by the Housing Executive (which does not mean they are living on the street but that homelessness is a reality the applicants are threatened with in their current circumstances).
Additionally, there is an issue with the points system currently being used. According to a report by the NfC, at the moment intimidation points give applicants an unfair advantage in the application process. This is compounded by the fact that some who have received the points are not eligible for them anyway. The definition of intimidation points has even been questioned, with domestic abuse not being covered.
At the same time, a point stressed by the DfC, there are people currently being given public housing who are viewed as having presented previous bad behaviour and have shown no sign of changing their ways but have just as good a chance of receiving public housing as the other applicants. Some feel like this shout be represented in the points system with additional points being awarded for good behaviour or points being taken away for bad behaviour. It is hard to tell how this would work though, unless a time limit were placed on the ‘bad behaviour’ subtraction so that a person is not disadvantaged for life.
Finally, complaints have been heard about the general administration of housing with repairs being desperately needed to make sure current social housing is kept up to a decent standard.
-What the new housing bill will try to do
Surprisingly, the bill promises that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive will set out to build new social housing, which has not occurred since the 1990s. This will prioritise affordable housing, provided to shorten the waiting list and provide a place for the most vulnerable in society. Prior to this, the only new affordable housing had been coming from the housing associations who were not building enough affordable housing to handle the rate of housing stress in the country. The lack of NIHE housing in the past may have been due to the difficulties faced in buying new land which can be used to build affordable housing. The need for new land was pointed out by the Communities ministers when announcing her new plans but the amount of land being bought will dictate the amount of new housing made.
Another most important aspect of the bill was the amount of money which would be going towards housing. According to the DfC, housing will need £3 billion over the next 11 years to solve its existing issues and repairs, adding that the Housing Executive will only really be able to muster up half that amount. The Minister for Communities made a promise to secure £100 million each year to hopefully help out but whether that will reduce the gap enough is left to be seen.
Intimidation points might also see a reassessment, the DfC made recommendations in a previous report that intimidation points should be removed completely from the points process as it had imbalanced the allocation process. In this reform, it appears that they might attempt to target illegitimate use of the intimidation points and make it so only those who actually deserve the points gain the advantage. On the other hand, domestic abuse has been suggested as an addition to the intimidation definition so that those who are domestically abused may be moved out of their home quickly. This suggestion looks extremely likely, as the new head of the NIHE has pointed out the need for better support for those domestically abused.
Finally, there was a recent announcement that £145 million will go towards co-ownership of housing. Presumably, this is an attempt to create a different option for cheap housing ownership which does not rely on selling public housing which is difficult and expensive to replace. There have been attempts in the past to see the removal of the right-to-buy scheme in Stormont but any attempts have been voted down due to the possible benefits of the scheme. Some in Stormont see the scheme as being a very legitimate way for people to get on the housing ladder and that losing social housing is an unfortunate consequence of an overall beneficial scheme.
-Where does NI public housing go from here
The moves being by the Department for Communities are comprehensive and will tackle some of the problems which are most pertinent. However, this bill will still need to make its way through Stormont where it will have to tackle those in favour of the right to buy scheme if the bill does try to abolish it. Despite that, the bill does have a decent chance of making its way through the legislature but more will still need to be done to fix housing. This is a brilliant starting point but the end goal is still a distance away.
