A Department for Communities response to a Stormont Assembly question has shone a light on the shape of housing need across the north between 2014 and 2024.

In addition to the ability that individuals and organisations have to submit Freedom of Information requests, MLAs at Stormont can ask Stormont departments directly for information. In September, for instance, MLA Ciara Ferguson asked the Communities Minister to detail the number of people and of households on the social housing waiting list; in housing stress; and with Full Duty Applicant Status, on 31 March and on 1 September in each of the last ten years, broken down by local council area.

The Minister’s full response can be found here in the NI Assembly records.

PPR have put together a graphic of the information (adding in the most recent (September 2024) figures from the Housing Executive to bring it up to date). It shows clearly the direction of housing need across the north over the last ten years.

Clearly, while the number of households on the waiting list has fluctuated somewhat over time, its general direction has been upwards. Housing stress and homelessness have both risen steadily and unremittingly throughout the decade. The proportion of homeless households on the waiting list has been growing as well – from around 3 in ten in 2014, to half in 2019, to over six in ten in 2024.

For Belfast, the data shows the same trends – the waiting list may go up and down but it is generally rising; and housing stress and homelessness both have risen without pause over the last decade. FDA homelessness has become ever more prevalent amongst waiting list households in Belfast, rising from 37% of the waiting list in 2014, to 59% in 2019, to 69% of the waiting list in 2024.