Financing affordable homes in the UK in partnership with Clúid Housing

Background

With over 68,000 households on the waiting list for social housing in Ireland, the Irish Government has committed to ensuring that everyone can access a home, either on their own or with State support. To increase the supply of social housing in Ireland, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH), and the Housing Agency have adapted their funding requirements to support innovation in the approved housing bodies (AHB) sector.

Solution

Marking our first-ever investment in the Irish social housing sector, we provided €54 million in long-term financing to Clúid Housing, one of Ireland’s largest AHBs. This investment is designed to fund the delivery of around 200 new social homes across the country.

Impact

With a portfolio of more than 8,000 homes across all counties in Ireland, Clúid plans to deliver an additional 3,000 new high-quality affordable homes before the end of 2022. In common with Clúid’s own philosophy, we believe that good-quality social housing empowers people to seek out employment, access education and tap into other services that enable them to enrich the communities in which they live.

As well as meeting the housing needs both of existing and future residents, this loan represents an innovative new financing model that is set to encourage the development of future private financing agreements in the AHB sector.