South Down MLA Colin McGrath (SDLP) has said there continues to be a need for social and affordable homes across South Down.
Commenting, the South Down MLA said: “I have met with several Housing Associations and pressed the case for the need for more social and affordable homes across our area.
“It is not acceptable that many people have to struggle to get a home to live in and raise their family in. This is the twenty-first century not the 1800’s and to have such a shortage of homes and only expensive options with high rents in the private sector is not acceptable.
“I know that many Housing Associations are working hard to deliver projects on the ground…  but I am concerned at the length of time it is taking for the delivery of a housing stock and it doesn’t enthuse people when you tell them some homes may be available in a number of years time.
“I want to see an extension of imaginative ways to deliver homes especially for the first time buyers that allows different approaches to credit for homes such as the Co-Ownership approach.
“Housing is a basic right, and it was long and hard fought for in NI going back to the Sixties in more recent times and it is incumbent upon our political institutions in Northern Ireland to deliver this for the people.
“It is shameful that we do not have an Executive which would have a Programme for Government containing targets to deliver more social and affordable homes.
“This absence of government is impacting in major ways on the ground and this is unacceptable.
“I will continue my work encouraging and promoting South Down with Housing Associations to deliver more homes on the ground.”
