A MORE “flexible approach” in tackling housing issues in rural areas such as Fermanagh is needed, Sinn Fein MLA Michelle Gildernew has said. 
She said some people have to make the decision to stay in inadequate or unfit accommodation rather than move to a location away from their family and support network, pointing to particular issues in obtaining bungalows and homes with disability access. 
1,655 people are in housing need in Fermanagh-south Tyrone, said Ms. Gildernew during a discussion at Stormont on social housing, but the Housing Executive has only about 14,000 dwellings available to rent in rural areas.
“We are still not building enough homes, and that is even starker in rural areas,” she said. 
In March 2016, approximately 13.5 per cent of those on the waiting list for social housing and 11 per cent of those who were registered as homeless wished to be housed in a rural area. 
“The proportion of social housing stock in rural areas, which is about seven per cent, remains significantly lower than in urban areas, where it is around 18 per cent. Unfitness is higher in rural areas, as is fuel poverty. Analysis of the current waiting list indicates that the main cause of homelessness in rural areas is unreasonable accommodation: a home that does not adequately meet the needs of the occupant.”
Ms. Gildernew said Northern Ireland is one of the few places she has been “where owning your house seems to be the be all and end all.”
“We need a greater stock of rented accommodation, and we need people to be able to access that.”