Armagh - Northern Ireland Housing Executive

Regional housing services
The Housing Executive provides a wide range of regional housing services. Some of
these are easily identifiable as they have no connection with our landlord role, e.g.
the funding and management of the Social Housing Development Programme and
the Home Improvement Grants Scheme. We also work closely with Health Trusts in
the delivery of the Supporting People Programme. However, some of the regional
housing services are less easy to distinguish from the landlord role, such as
homelessness, Housing Selection Scheme policy, and the administration of Housing
Benefit to social and private tenants.
3.2 Objective 1 - Delivering better homes
To deliver better homes we aim to:
• Increase the supply of social housing and bring long term We completed
empty properties back into use for social renting;
five new build
schemes to
• Support private sector improvements to reduce the
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percentage of homes failing the Decent Homes Standard;
social housing
• Promote thermal efficiency to help address fuel poverty. units in 2012/13.
The Programme for Government 2011-2015 sets a target of 6,000 social and 2,000
affordable homes over the four year period. We work closely with partner housing
associations to deliver the Social Housing Development Programme (SHDP) across
Northern Ireland and will continue to support housing associations to develop higher
levels of energy efficiency and sustainability.
When preparing a housing mix
for individual new build
schemes, a number of factors
are taken into consideration,
including household groups in
housing stress and demand for
bespoke properties from
wheelchair users or those with
complex needs. The Housing
Executive promotes the
development of a minimum 200
one bed units by housing
associations in each year of the
SHDP 2013/16. This will help
meet the needs of those
requiring smaller properties in
line with welfare reform. Details of the SHDP are shown in Appendix 1.
The ‘Get Britain Building’ fund, administered by DSD, will provide £19 million in interest
free loans to housing associations to facilitate the delivery of affordable housing in
Northern Ireland over the next two years.
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