Submission on the People’s Housing Bill

Jan 29, 2025



The Consultation

In late 2024, Gerry Carroll MLA launched a consultation on a Private Member’s Bill he plans to bring forward to the Assembly. The consultation on the Bill covers a wide range of areas including housing affordability, vacant properties, security of tenure, housing conditions and the proposed introduction of a rental board. Homeless Connect’s response has been informed by the views of members of our policy forum who provided valuable insights on the questions asked in the consultation.

Key Points

Some of the key points made in the response include:

  • It is evident that many people are struggling with affordability of housing in the private rental sector (hereafter PRS). Between April 2016 and September 2024, the Housing Executive recorded 21,613 homelessness presentations resulting from the loss of private rented accommodation with 13,141 of those presentations leading to homelessness acceptances. In the last year for which statistics are available, October 2023 through to September 2024, there were 2,714 presentations recorded with 1,699 acceptances
  • While we are not opposed to the principle of rent control measures, especially when the intention is to prevent homelessness, we firmly believe that great care is needed to avoid any unintended consequences which could have the reverse effect of an increase in evictions.
  • When it comes to security of tenure, we agree that further consideration should be given to measures which could meaningfully improve security of tenure for tenants. We accept that for too many households, the current legislative position is not providing sufficient security of tenure which can lead to anxiety regarding the possibility of eviction and homelessness
  • When it comes to housing conditions, we believe further action is needed to improve standards in the Private Rented Sector. It is widely acknowledged in the housing and homelessness sector and beyond that the current fitness standard in operation and is no longer fit for purpose.
  • Homeless Connect believes that the current enforcement measures in place for the private rented sector here are not fit for purpose… We believe it is important for policymakers to consider options around the introduction of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.
  • We have previously outlined that we believe that a statutory duty to prevent homelessness should be explored in Northern Ireland. However, in our estimation this duty should go beyond the Housing Executive to incorporate other statutory and public authorities. The Housing Executive already has statutory responsibility to respond to homelessness and has called for the introduction of a duty of this nature to be placed on them. However, they have also noted that homelessness prevention goes far beyond the Housing Executive and that a duty should apply to other statutory authorities.

You can read our full response to the consultation here.

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