- The most recent available data shows 58,238 people in Northern Ireland are considered homeless and have been granted “full duty applicant” status by the Housing Executive.
- Research commissioned by the Simon Community indicates that around 25,000 people are experiencing “hidden homelessness”, meaning they are effectively homeless but do not show up in official data. By definition, figures for hidden homelessness are estimates and rely on data analysis with a range of uncertainty.
- One in 33 people in Northern Ireland are officially homeless, i.e. they are Housing Executive full duty applicants. This rises to one in 23 people when estimates of hidden homelessness are included.
- Spending by the Housing Executive on temporary accommodation in Northern Ireland has increased by 495% to £34.5m in the five years to 2023/24.
- There are currently 5,106 children in temporary accommodation in Northern Ireland.
During a debate on homelessness in the Northern Ireland Assembly on the 2nd of December 2024, Sinn Féin MLA Ciara Ferguson:
“When you take the 58,238 people who are homeless, which is the official statistic as of 30 June 2024, and add the approximately 25,000 people who are deemed to be experiencing hidden homelessness, as suggested by the Simon Community’s research, you see that we have over 88,000 people who do not have access to secure housing. That is one in every 33 people across our society today… Spending on temporary accommodation has increased by 495% to £34·5 million over the past five years. Sadly, as of April 2024, the statistics include over 5,106 children.”
There are several aspects to this claim:
- 58,238 people are homeless, according to official data as of 30 June this year.
- Beyond this, approximately 25,000 people are experiencing hidden homelessness.
- This means that around one in every 33 people in Northern Ireland are experiencing some sort of homelessness.
- Spending on temporary accommodation has increased six-fold to £34.5m over the past five years.
- Over 5,106 children are currently living in temporary accommodation.
These claims are supported by evidence.
Official data shows that 58,238 people are considered homeless by the Housing Executive. Research from the Simon Community estimates that a further 25,000 people are hidden homeless.
Despite some possible confusion with the statistics quoted, Ms Ferguson’s claim that over one in 33 people are homeless is correct – and, in fact, this is the case when only considering people contained within the official figures. When hidden homelessness is factored in, we find that around one in 23 local people are experiencing some form of homelessness.
Spending on temporary accommodation has increased by 495% over the past five years, to £34.5m, based on data from various sources. This includes money used to house at least 5,106 children, according to statistics from the Department for Communities.
Read on for more details.
- Source
FactCheckNI contacted Ms Ferguson about this claim and she responded by flagging up a briefing paper from homelessness charity the Simon Community.
This briefing paper cited original research by the organisation, as well as various other sources of data including official statistics.
- Official homelessness
Northern Ireland has a working legal definition of homelessness used by the state.
This involves a series of tests carried out by the Housing Executive to evaluate any current living conditions and whether they “pass” the homelessness tests, entitling them to various types of support. These tests examine whether a person:
- is homeless or threatened with homelessness (homelessness)
- is eligible for assistance (eligibility)
- is a vulnerable person (priority need)
- made himself or herself homeless (intentionality)
Anyone who passes all these tests is deemed a “full duty applicant” and is legally homeless.
In a 14 October response to a written question from Ms Ferguson, the Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons supplied the Sinn Féin MLA with Housing Executive data tables showing that, at 30 June 2024, there were 58,238 full duty applicants (officially homeless) people in Northern Ireland.
Therefore the first aspect of this claim is supported by evidence.
Based on the data from the Minister, it is clear that there has been steady and significant growth in the number of full duty applicants over the past decade, with an increase of 134% between 2014 and 2024.
Figure 1 – source: Data from the Housing Executive, via the Department for Communities
- Hidden homelessness
Hidden homelessness is any situation in which a person finds themselves effectively homeless – which can range from sofa surfing with friends to rough sleeping – but who is not contained within official statistics for some reason, including that they are not entitled to help with their situation or even that they have not applied for help.
There are various working definitions of hidden homeless (see here from Crisis and research from Ulster University in partnership with the Simon Community here). By definition, people experiencing hidden homelessness are not included within statutory figures on homelessness albeit this remains an area of focus for the government.
Ms Ferguson cited research from the Simon Community as the basis of her claims. The charity supplied MLAs with a briefing paper during Homelessness Awareness Week earlier this month, which contained a line saying that, based on its own research, “there are up to an additional 25,000 people” who are hidden homeless.
The research in question is from May this year, and relied on commissioned surveys from LucidTalk and Ireland Thinks.
The Simon Community report itself discussed various definitions of hidden homelessness, and outlined some of the methods used in its research, before providing the results from its data analysis, including that:
“In Northern Ireland there are 768,000 households and there we expect 8,500 households, with a range of between 3,500 and 13,500 (figures are rounded to the nearest 500 so as not to give a false impression of precision) that fall into this hidden homelessness category.”
This ultimately shakes out to a central estimate of around 25,000 people who are hidden homeless:
Figure 2 – source: Simon Community
The range of estimates here provides a good indication of how difficult this data is to pin down accurately. The lower and upper bounds for both households and individual people experiencing hidden homelessness are far apart. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that all this research is an effort to quantify something for which concrete data by definition does not exist. The Simon Community states that it believes its estimate “is certainly on the conservative side”.
Studies and surveys are not infallible – especially so when they are explicitly about making estimates – but that is the nature of research. No process is perfect.
With all those caveats in mind, this Simon Community research provides justification for why there may be an estimated 25,000 people in Northern Ireland who are hidden homeless.
- Proportion
Ms Ferguson’s phrasing during the debate suggested that by considering both the figures for officially homeless and hidden homeless individuals in Northern Ireland we can see that around 88,000 people are experiencing some form of homelessness and that this equates to more than one in every 33 people.
There are a couple of issues with this. Around 58,000 officially homeless plus an estimated 25,000 hidden homeless actually equates to 83,000 people, not 88,000. It might be worth noting that the Simon Community’s briefing paper for MLAs included this detail:
Figure 3 – source: Simon Community
However, the population of Northern Ireland is currently around 1.9 million people (it was calculated at 1.90m in the 2021 Census while recently-published estimates for the middle of 2023 put it at 1.92m).
Dividing 1.9m by 33 equates to around 57,500 people.
This means that, purely based on the figures for official homelessness, we can see that more than one in 33 people in Northern Ireland are experiencing homelessness.
In fact, when including the estimated 25,000 people who are hidden homeless alongside the 58,238 full duty applicants, we can calculate that around one in 23 people in Northern Ireland are estimated to be experiencing some form of homelessness.
- Other two aspects
The fourth part of this claim states that spending on temporary accommodation has increased by 495% – to £34.5m – in five years.
This is supported by evidence.
Data on spending on temporary accommodation in Northern Ireland for the fiscal years from 2018/19 to 2022/23 was provided by the Housing Executive in response to a freedom of information request in August 2023; figures for 2023/24 were reported by the Chartered Institute of Housing in June 2024.
The fifth aspect of the claim is something that FactCheckNI explored previously.
As can be seen from that previous fact check, figures from the Department for Communities show that 5,106 local children are living in temporary accommodation.
