When a homeless applicant is, following enquiries, assessed as eligible, councils must then adhere to their statutory duties in the provision of assistance. These duties are the prevention duty, relief duty, and main housing duty and are set out below.
When a person is eligible and at risk of homelessness within 56 days councils are required to provide advice and assistance to prevent such a person from becoming homeless within that that period.
When a person is eligible and homeless a council must assist the person to take ‘reasonable steps’ to secure accommodation to end their homelessness. This can include assisting the person to find their own accommodation, or in some cases, the local authority providing the person with accommodation. This duty applies for a period of six months.
When a person is eligible, homeless, in priority need, and is not ‘intentionally homeless’ councils must intervene and provide temporary accommodation. A council can discharge its main housing duty through the provision of permanent accommodation such as an allocation of social housing, or advice and assistance with securing accommodation from another source such as a housing association or private landlord. Read our webpage on allocation of social housing.
For further detail on these duties please refer to the Homelessness code of guidance.
The categories of people who have a priority need for local authority homelessness assistance are set out in chapter 8 of the Homelessness code of guidance. A person will have priority need if they are:
A person will be in a vulnerable group if they are:
A council may determine that a person has made themselves intentionally homeless and therefore cannot be provided with assistance where it is considered that their homelessness can be attributed to their own deliberate actions. For more information on when a person might be assessed as intentionally homeless, please refer to chapter 9 of the Homeless code of guidance.
