Are you homeless or at risk of becoming homeless?

Homeless or at risk of becoming homeless

If you are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless you should contact us as soon as you can. The Homeless Reduction Act 2017 means that we have duties to try and prevent and relieve homelessness.

Prevention duty

We have a duty to provide advice and assistance if you are:

eligible for assistance which means you have the right to claim benefits and housing the UK
at risk of becoming homeless within 56 days (8 weeks)

This prevention duty means that we must take reasonable steps to help prevent you from becoming homeless. This duty last for 56 days.

Relief duty

If we can’t prevent you from becoming homeless during the prevention duty period then we have 56 days to help you find accommodation during the relief period.

Personal housing plan

We will provide you with a housing officer who will work with you to prevent and relieve your homelessness.

The officer will complete a detailed assessment of your housing situation, your support needs and the type of housing you require. This assessment will form the basis of your personal housing plan.

Your personal housing plan will include all the housing options you need to explore with reasonable steps that you need to do to help you improve your situation. You need to cooperate with the steps in your plan in order to resolve your housing issue.

Homelessness decision

If you are homeless when the relief duty ends we will make a decision on whether we owe you any further housing duty. We will usually only accept a full duty to offer you permanent accommodation if you:

are in priority need
are not intentionally homeless
have a local connection to our district

If you are not in priority need or are intentionally homeless we may only have a duty to offer you advice and assistance. We may be able to provide temporary accommodation for a short period of time, depending on your circumstances.

If you disagree

If you are not happy with a decision we have made you can ask us to look at it again. This can include a decision about the steps we think are reasonable to prevent or relieve your homelessness, or that you have deliberately or unreasonably refused to cooperate over your personal housing plan.

There is also help on the Government website.

You can also find advice on housing and homelessness on the Shelter website.

If you are homeless in an emergency today outside office hours, and you have no-one that can accommodate you temporarily, you can ring the councils out of hours number 01235 422420 for assistance.

Homelessness and rough sleeping strategy

Following a Homelessness Review, a consultation with key stakeholders, a workshop with Councillors and a public consultation, the updated Joint Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy was approved by both councils in October 2025 and takes effect from 3 November 2025. The strategy is accompanied by an Action Plan with measurable outcomes.