Homeless Applications: The First Step to Getting Housing
02/03/17 19:15 Filed in: Legal | Government
In applying for help with housing, the single most crucial task if to ensure that your approach to your council is formally registered as a statutory homeless application. Without this, you have no rights at all. With it, you have your way to get housed.
Fact 1: The UK today has a housing crisis. Housing Benefit does not reflect real rents, unemployment benefit is hedged about with onerous restrictions, tenants can be evicted by landlords very easily and homelessness is increasing. (UK Government Homeless Statistics).
Fact 2: Every Local Authority (your local council), has a legal duty to provide accommodation to a great many people facing homelessness and a legal duty to investigate almost every approach for help made to them and issue a reviewable decision letter to that person.
Fact 3: Most people don’t know the real criteria used by councils to decide whether they have a duty to house someone. You can use this site and the Get Housed book to make sure that you do.
Imagine that you have 10 houses to give to people who need them. Now imagine that you are faced with 100 people applying for them. How do you decide who gets housed? This is the situation faced by every local council housing department in England every day.
What does this mean? It means that every housing department of every local council in every area of England has to find ways to not house most of the people who come through their doors asking for help. Even if you are facing homelessness, they mostly succeed in this because most people don’t know when they are being sidetracked. Having worked in the sector for years my experience is that most people do not get either a) the help they need or b) even the chance to exercise what few legal rights they do have.
Signing onto your local ‘housing list’ is almost guaranteed to get you nowhere. The quickest way to get housed is through the ‘homeless route’ ; using your legal rights under the homelessness legislation which have been hidden (but not taken away) from you over the last 10 years. It’s now time for you to claim them back.
This website (and associated book) is here to help you get through, over, past and around every test and barrier which a local homeless department might put in your way. I should know; I have worked in homelessness for years as a specialist contractor for a wide range of local councils. It was my job to assess initial applications, to carry out reviews of negative decisions and to carry out training for local council staff so that they could be better at doing the same. Most local authority staff are not are not legal specialists and with the right information, you can make sure that you maximise your chances of getting housed by your local council. There are people doing this right now. Make sure you are one of them. Read the website and get the book for the full guide on how to get yourself housed.
The majority of people who do succeed in getting housed are those who have legal help behind them. This can mean an organisation such as Shelter or a solicitor who specialises in homelessness. But what if you don’t qualify for legal aid because you earn just a little too much? What if the waiting list to get seen by a representative is too long or even if you live in an area where there just aren’t any specialised solicitors around? If you find yourself faced with homelessness then you are going to have to know your legal rights yourself. The Get Housed book shows you what you need to know and how to put it into action.
Sound good? Then bookmark this website, follow the Facebook page and buy the book: Get Housed: it’s your legal right.
Fact: 4: You can do it!
As always - if you buy the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It really helps in promoting the book and getting the information out to more people. Many thanks.
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