Debate contribution: Housing (Amendment) Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Colm Gildernew on 21 September 2026.

MLA: Mr Colm Gildernew
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 21 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Housing (Amendment) Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5743121

Text

I beg to move
Go raibh maith agat.
There is no denying the fact that the North is experiencing a chronic housing and homelessness crisis. We know that because the publicly available data released by the Department for Communities tells us as much. New figures released in the past number of weeks show that the number of households on the social housing waiting list now sits at over 50,000, which is the highest that it has ever been. The same figures also show that the number of statutorily homeless people in the North is now over 64,000, which is, again, the highest that it has ever been. That figure represents roughly one in 32 people currently living in the North and is a significant increase of 136% over the past decade. In that context, I have introduced this Bill to provide additional support to those who are at risk of homelessness.
For clarity, I should remind Members whom we are referring to when we speak about homelessness. It means the family living in a hotel or a bed and breakfast. It means the child with not only no front door but not even a desk to do their homework. It means the mother and three children who are trying to escape domestic violence, and it means the young man who is sofa-surfing around several friends' houses, as well as those who are sleeping in hostels or on our streets. My Bill aims to better support those families and individuals. The Bill will amend the definition of "threatened with homelessness" as set out in the Housing Order 1988. This is probably unusual, but I will read the entirety of the Bill:
"Definition of threatened with homelessness 1. In Article 3(6) of the Housing (NI) Order 1988 (definition of threatened with homelessness) for “will become homeless within 28 days” substitute “will become homeless within 60 days”. Commencement 2. This Act comes into operation at the end of the period of 6 months after the date this Act receives Royal Assent. Short title 3. This Act may be cited as the Housing (Amendment) Act".
That is the entirety of the Bill. The Bill is even more crucial since the passage of the Private Tenancies Act 2022, which was brought forward by my Sinn Féin colleague and previous Communities Minister, Deirdre Hargey, which increased the notice-to-quit period from 28 days to 56 days. In practice, that means that a family who potentially received a notice-to-quit letter this morning stating that they have 56 days to vacate their home are not entitled to any support from the Housing Executive for 28 precious days, and not until just 28 days remain until the day they lose their home. That makes no sense. We have all assisted people who are suffering from homelessness through our constituency offices. Members will fully understand the human impact that the homelessness crisis is having on families across our community. Falling into homelessness is a profoundly traumatic experience. Homelessness leads to poorer outcomes for the individuals who are affected across a host of different measures, including poorer physical and mental health, as well as a greater risk of addiction and social isolation. It also creates barriers to finding employment and maintaining relationships, as well as significantly reducing life expectancy. It can severely impact on children's educational attainment and personal development, the effects of which are often felt for the rest of that child's life. It is also an extremely difficult cycle to break once it occurs, and it often requires a significant amount of administrative and financial resources to address. That is why prevention is key in this debate. Preventing homelessness from occurring in the first place will always be the best possible outcome for the individual who is affected, for the organisations that provide such professional support and, indeed, for wider society. So far, we have utterly failed to prioritise prevention as a response to homelessness, with a recent Audit Office report highlighting that less than 10% of the homelessness budget currently goes towards prevention. It is clear that we need to start moving the dial towards greater prevention. It is my firm belief that the Bill will assist in achieving that. Under the current law, the Housing Executive has a duty to provide support to people who are threatened with homelessness, which includes providing temporary accommodation. However, importantly, it can also provide a range of other forms of support such as debt advice, community mediation should conflict be a factor, legal advice, signposting to other agencies, helping to secure a tenancy from the private rental market, or mediation between landlords and tenants. Extending the time period from 28 days to 60 days will allow the Housing Executive more time to develop a solution using some of those interventions and will prevent more people from falling into homelessness. Surely that makes sense to us all. It has long been considered that the 28-day window was too short to provide an effective level of support, with many organisations having long called for it to be extended. For example, the Simon Community strongly supports the change. It stated that the current 28-day window:
"is far too late for effective and meaningful intervention and forces the Housing Executive to respond to an emergency rather than having the opportunity to prevent it."
Extending the definition of "threatened with homelessness" to 60 days would give the Housing Executive and partner organisations more time to meaningfully step in and provide support to sustain tenancies and prevent homelessness.
Another significant local organisation, Homeless Connect, stated:
"Homeless Connect is supportive of the principle of extending the period within which a person at risk of homelessness can access support for the purposes of preventing homelessness ... The current 28-day threshold does not provide sufficient time for meaningful prevention activity and is difficult to align with current private tenancy notice periods. Earlier intervention is likely to improve opportunities to sustain accommodation and avoid crisis responses."
A chairde,
the current, ongoing homelessness crisis is a testament to the ineffectiveness of our current laws. The most recent statistics, to which I referred earlier, are evidence enough that we badly need change. That is in stark contrast to other jurisdictions, notably England, Scotland and Wales, which have all introduced sweeping changes to their homelessness legislation in recent years, with much more focus on prevention. Having clearly understood the need for change, I wrote to the Minister for Communities in 2024 asking whether he planned to introduce any legislative reforms in the area in this mandate. His response confirmed to me that he had no plans to change the law within the mandate, so I decided to begin the process of developing a private Member's Bill. I carried out extensive consultation throughout 2025 with the general public through an online survey; with key stakeholders and experts; and with the Department and the Housing Executive. The response from the public and the experts was overwhelmingly positive, with many people highlighting the shortcomings of the current system and the obvious need for change. I also met the Human Rights Commissioner and equality commissioner, neither of whom flagged any concerns about my Bill. The Minister for Communities, his Department and the Housing Executive have raised some concerns, mainly regarding the potential of the Bill to create more demand for temporary accommodation. Let me be clear: the Bill is, in part, about ensuring that temporary accommodation can be offered to people at an earlier stage, but that does not necessarily, in itself, create significant additional demand. Many people who are faced with a housing crisis will want to avoid accepting an offer of temporary accommodation until such time as it becomes the only option left, with all other avenues having been exhausted. The new law will mean that they can avail themselves of those other forms of support earlier, such as mediation, housing advice, debt advice or other supports, potentially staving off the need for them to be forced to accept an offer of temporary accommodation. While some extra demand for temporary accommodation may arise from the Bill, I do not believe that that will be significant for reasons that I have just set out. Furthermore, we need to measure that against the cost of increasing the homelessness supports that the Bill would provide. I wholeheartedly welcomed the Minister's announcement last year that he intends to purchase 600 homes that will be used as temporary accommodation. That scheme has the potential to make a real difference in enabling us to meet current and future demand and ensure that fewer offers of non-standard temporary accommodation, such as hotels and B&Bs, become necessary, thereby potentially reducing the overall cost of temporary accommodation. To my knowledge, as of today, none of those homes has been purchased. That is not good enough if we are serious about supporting those at risk of losing their home. The delays to the roll-out of the scheme have been disappointing, and I urge the Minister to progress it as a priority.

1,504 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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