Housing Executive records at end March 2026 show 50,381 households on the waiting list across the north. These households include at least* 28,596 children under 18.

Two thirds of waiting list households (33,412 households in total) have been officially recognised as homeless by the Housing Executive and granted Full Duty Applicant status (FDA). These homeless households between them include at least 20,563 children under 18.

Belfast alone has 14,196 households on the waiting list for a social home. The Housing Executive has recognised over three quarters of them – 10,737 households — as FDA homeless. These homeless households between them have at least 6,184 children under 18.

Department of Finance statistics, based on Building Control figures on new build dwellings, show that in the ten year period between 2016 and 2025 there were 8,054 new build social homes started - an average of 805 each year.

For the sake of thoroughness and accuracy, we note that the Housing Executive’s publicly available Social Housing Development Programme record (which is a rolling list of ongoing projects and those ‘programmed to start’) includes some categories that, while not newly-designed or -built homes, would upon completion add to the overall stock of social homes as well. These include schemes listed as ‘rehab’, ‘existing satisfactory purchase’, ‘off the shelf’ and ‘reimprovement’, for instance. When the SHDP record was accessed on 3 July 2026 there appeared to be just over 40 such schemes, out of the 597 listed.

* We say ‘at least’ because the Housing Executive data does not allow for a precise figure. It categorises its figures by set household types, which include, for instance, “≥3 adults and 0-1 children” (1,149 households) ;“1 parent and ≥4 children” (655 households); and “2 adults and ≥4 children” (481 households). In these instances we use the lowest possible number of children so as to ensure accuracy.