NI budget: Warning social housing cuts will hit the vulnerable

Proposed cuts to funding social housing in Northern Ireland are likely to hit the most vulnerable with "so many people in crisis", a housing association has warned.

The Department for Communities faces a 16% cut in day-to-day spending.

This could mean cutting the number of new social homes built this year from 2,000 to 1,400.

Housing associations and those who are on waiting lists - some for many years - are worried.

Grove Housing Association plans to build 31 new social homes on a site in north Belfast that it bought in 2019.

But it has faced various planning and infrastructure hurdles including problems trying to get connected to the water and sewerage system.

Chief executive Agnes Crawford said she was very concerned about the talk of cuts when there were so many people in need.

"There are two risks - there's a risk of the scheme not being financially viable to deliver and that means all of the homes being shelved which we don't want to see at all," she said.

"Or there's the risk of going ahead with the project with reduced funding, which then means increased borrowing which is difficult then to keep rents at an affordable level."

If the level of government funding is reduced, that could mean more borrowing from private finance which could in turn then mean higher rents for tenants.

"It's vital that the budget is protected because there are so many people in crisis, there's so many people in great housing need," she said.

"It's having a huge impact on mental health, physical health for people with disabilities, it's putting families at risk and it's slowing down the regeneration of north Belfast which is often the forgotten part of the city."

The Department for Communities received £111m less than it asked for in April's budget,

Paula Reynolds has been on a waiting list for a bungalow in this scheme in north Belfast since 2020.

Her son Kai is nine and has severe developmental delay and special needs, epilepsy and problems with walking, so Paula has to carry him up and down the stairs.

She said a bungalow would be "a complete lifeline" for her and would make a big difference to her family's quality of life.

"It's a whole safety thing for Kai, just taking those stairs away would mean so much there would be no risk of him falling. I wouldn't have to carry him so much," she said.

"He's getting big now, he's nine so he's getting heavy, so it's a lot on me to be carrying him around so much.

"I'm probably not going to be getting into this bungalow, if it goes ahead, until he's 11 so that's another two years of me carrying him which impacts on me because it hurts my back and is a struggle.

"It's scary to think that I've waited this long and it might not go ahead, and also that I could have missed out on another one somewhere else because I'm solely waiting on this one.

"I could be hanging on until he's 11 and then that wouldn't go ahead and I'm going to be left on the list."