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artists impression of houses at evish road strabane from clanmill housing
Project:

Social Housing Development Programme

Status
Current
Department
Department for Communities
Public Body
Northern Ireland Housing Executive

Building a fairer, shared future through social housing

The provision of quality social housing is fundamental to the Executive’s plans for a healthier, fairer and more sustainable future for the people of Northern Ireland.

The Social Housing Development Programme (SHDP) is a three-year rolling project which aims to deliver 2,000 new units of social housing per year, dependent on the budget available from the Department for Communities.

The SHDP is created and maintained through collaboration between the Department for Communities (DfC), the NI Housing Executive (NIHE) and Registered Housing Associations (HA).

The SHDP has to date:

  • Delivered 6,709 units between the 2017/18 and the 2020/21 financial years
  • Improved access to quality social housing in areas of critical housing stress
  • Created new social housing in some of our most remote communities such as Rathlin Island
  • Excluding the 2019/20 financial year (which was heavily impacted by Covid-19 restrictions), the SHDP hs achieved an average of 104.3% of its target new housing starts each year since 2012/13.

Social housing ensures that people have access to housing that provides security of tenure, allowing tenants stability to plan for their futures. All new housing created under the SHDP is made to high energy efficiency standards, sometimes replacing less efficient older housing stock and therefore contributing to our de-carbonisation objectives.

The SHDP also plays a major part in creating new shared communities in Northern Ireland leading to a peaceful, shared future for everyone in the region.