After all, the counties also run drug-rehabilitation, housing and job-placement programmes that the probationers need to build new and cleaner lives.

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But in recent years, some housing estates have come under regeneration programmes.

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Mortgage rates are at historically low levels, which is helping buoy transactions, but if central banks begin to withdraw unconventional programmes to support the housing market, such as the Federal Reserve's purchases of mortgage-backed securities, the recovery may slow.

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The DUP's Paula Bradley said she opposed the motion and amendment as she believed the Girdwood proposals, along with the current strategies and programmes already implemented by the Housing Executive, were moving Northern Ireland's social housing stock to a "realistic scenario".

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Previously, the government had introduced several programmes to benefit the youth, including low-interest loans for opening a business and affordable housing.

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But there has been at least 10 years of experience of similar programmes (or perhaps 20 years, from City Challenge to SRB and Objective One programmes.) What we aim to show in our film is that the partnership model of housing renewal does not allow for full community involvement, despite the rhetoric of participation adopted by this and previous governments.

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