The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 introduced a duty on specified public authorities to refer service users who they think may be homeless or threatened with homelessness within 56 days to local authority homelessness/housing options teams.
The duty to refer will help to ensure that services are working together effectively to prevent homelessness by ensuring that peoples’ housing needs are considered when they come into contact with public authorities.
This duty applies to the following agencies:
- Prisons
- Youth offender institutions
- Secure training centres
- Secure colleges
- Youth offending teams
- Probation services (including community rehabilitation companies)
- Jobcentre Plus
- Social service authorities
- Emergency departments
- Urgent treatment centres
- Hospitals in their function of providing inpatient care
Before making the referral, you must:
- Allow the person concerned to identify the local council they would like the notification to be made to
- Have consent from the person concerned so their contact details can be shared with us
Further information is available on the Duty to refer page on the GOV.UK website.
We may contact you for further information. We will then contact your customer directly to arrange a housing options appointment. We will make two attempts to speak to your customer, but if we are unable to do so we will have to close the case and we will notify you that we have taken this action. A new referral should be made if our support is still required.