Homelessness support

If you are at risk of becoming homeless, please email housing@westberks.gov.uk and we will contact you to arrange an appointment.

If you are homeless today, you can speak to an officer by calling 01635 519 530 and choosing option 2. Our hours of service are: Monday to Thursday - 8.30am to 5pm, Friday - 8.30am to 4.30pm.

If you have been made homeless outside of these hours, please call the emergency duty team on 01344 351 999.

Advice on this page:

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How to help a rough sleeper

If you are at risk of becoming homeless

If you think you might lose your home, contact the Housing Options Team as soon as possible (see our contact details at the top of this page). We will help you to stay in your home where possible, provide advice and help you explore your housing options.

There are many situations that could put you at risk of homelessness, including:

you are at risk of losing your home (if you're renting, this could be because of a notice from your landlord)
you are staying with friends or family and they have asked you to leave
you are at risk of violence or domestic abuse where you are living (this can be from a partner, ex-partner, family member or somebody else)
you are rough sleeping
you cannot afford to stay where you are or are having problems paying your mortgage
your relationship has broken down with your partner or family member and you cannot continue to live there
you have nowhere to put your houseboat or caravan

We can help in a variety of ways, including referrals to other support agencies, assistance with finances, advice on tenancy matters, negotiation and advocacy. Find out more on our 'how we can help' page.

There is a very high demand for social and affordable housing. We will provide housing advice to everyone that needs it, but we focus our help on those who are eligible for housing assistance.

If you are already homeless

If you are already homeless, we will assess your case to see how we can help.

We cannot house everyone who is homeless, and we use legal guidelines to decide who will be housed. Even if you qualify for social housing, there might not be suitable social housing available, so we will also look at private rented accommodation. This will give you more choice about the type of accommodation, where you live, and how much rent you pay.

Am I considered homeless?

By law, you are homeless if you do not have accommodation in which you have a right to live (including accommodation abroad). If you don't have anywhere you can stay, or if staying there would put you at risk of harm, then we are likely to accept that you are homeless.

We will not give you a home if you have become homeless intentionally. You could be 'intentionally homeless' if, for example, you have been evicted because you did not pay your rent when you could have done, or you have given up your home without a valid reason.

What happens when you contact the housing team

If you are homeless on the day you contact us, the Duty Officer will either see or contact you on the same day, to decide what help we can offer.

If you are not homeless on the day you contact us, a Homelessness Prevention and Relief Officer will contact you within a few days. In most cases, they will ask you to attend the office for an appointment. The Homelessness Prevention and Relief Officer will make enquiries into your application and will tell you what the decision is.

If you need to be interviewed in a different language, we can use the Language Line service to speak to you in your own language.

You will be given or emailed a letter with your Homelessness Prevention and Relief Officer's name and office telephone number. You should contact them about anything to do with your application. Either phone them or make an appointment to see them at the office (you will need an appointment to see them in person).

If there is any change in your situation between your first interview and our decision, you must tell your Homelessness Prevention and Relief Officer immediately.

You must tell us the truth and give us all the information we need. To protect people who are genuinely homeless, we will take legal action against you if you don't do this.

At your appointment

Your Homelessness Prevention and Relief Officer will ask you to sign your application form, authorising us to contact other agencies. We may need to contact:

doctors
solicitors
building societies
the Home Office
landlords
other agencies

We will also need to check that you have lived at the previous addresses that you have given us. We may run a check through Experian (a credit check agency).

Information we need from you

Your Homelessness Prevention and Relief Officer will ask you to provide some documents. These may include:

proof of identity, including full birth certificates and passports (or Home Office papers) of all the people in your application
proof that you are or will be homeless, such as:
- a notice to quit from your landlord, friend or relative
- letters from the building society showing that it intends to repossess your home
- a court order or bailiff's warrant
proof of income and savings, including:
- last three wage slips, benefit books/letters of confirmation, P45, bank statements and savings books
- National Insurance numbers
proof of where you and all the people in your application have lived for the last five years, including:
- tenancy agreements
- rent books or receipts for rent
- at least three official documents/bills in your name
- Council Tax documents
- driving licences
- medical cards
If relevant, documents proving:
- you are married
- you are divorced
- you have children (including Child Benefit book)
- you are pregnant (hospital ante-natal record)
- you are asking for or have been given asylum

If you have a physical or mental health problem or a disability, bring information about your condition and any treatment you receive. Bring details of your hospital consultant and GP.

If you believe you are at risk of violence, bring any police crime reference numbers or contact details of anyone helping or supporting you (such as social services, probation, drug or alcohol misuse support agencies, counsellors).

If you are living with friends or relatives, we will also need to interview the person asking you to leave. We may need to arrange a visit to confirm that you are homeless, before we make a decision on your application.

Fraudulent information:

The council is under a duty to protect public funds and we may use the information you provide to match it to other information held by the council, for example your Council Tax details. The council may also disclose any such information to other public bodies, or similar external agencies, but only for the purpose of the prevention or detection of fraud.

You are required to sign a declaration on the application form which states that you will give us correct information, will not withhold any relevant information or mislead the council in any way. The declaration states that applicants are liable to prosecution if any of the information is found to be false. If an applicant is found guilty, they could be ordered to pay a fine of up to £5000, as set out in Section 214 of the Housing Act 1996, Part 7.

You must keep us informed of any changes in your circumstances.

Who we can provide housing to

Under housing law, the council must find accommodation for someone who is eligible, homeless, in priority need and who has not made themselves homeless intentionally. If you do not fall into all these categories, we do not have to house you.

However, we will offer advice to help you find housing for yourself. Even if we do have a duty to house you, the accommodation we give you may be in the private sector.

You can find out about our duties under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 here.

Are you eligible?

Most UK residents are eligible for assistance. However, you might not be eligible if, for example:

you are a student from another country or a sponsored immigrant
you are seeking asylum (see the government asylum support for assistance with housing)
you are not usually resident in this country
the Home Secretary has said you no longer have a right to stay in this country

If you are a European Economic Area (EEA) national, you may be eligible, but this will depend on your current and recent work history.

Are you in priority need?

You will usually be in priority need if, for example:

you have a dependent child living with you
someone in your household is pregnant
you are sixteen or seventeen years old

You may also be in priority need if you are vulnerable. To assess your vulnerability, we will need to ask you questions about your personal and housing history, any treatment or support you are receiving, and how you cope in daily life.

We will look into:

your age
your physical and mental health and any disabilities
whether you are leaving your home because you are likely to suffer violence
time spent in care
time spent in the armed forces
time spent in prison

You should tell us about any other circumstances that might make it difficult for you to cope.

If you are 16 or 17 years old, we will carry out a joint assessment with Children's Services to determine who is best placed to help you.

Local connection

If you don't have a local connection with West Berkshire, we will refer you to an area where you do have a local connection (unless there are exceptional circumstances). The local authority in that area will then deal with your housing.

You will be considered as having a local connection with West Berkshire if, for example, you:

have lived in West Berkshire for six months or more in the last year, or for three out of the last five years
work in West Berkshire
have close family in West Berkshire who have been living here for five years
have what we accept is a special reason why you should live in West Berkshire

Temporary accommodation

If necessary, we will provide you with temporary accommodation while we look into your application. Because there are many people waiting for permanent social housing, temporary accommodation is likely to be in a hostel, bed and breakfast or accommodation managed by an agency. The council has very limited temporary accommodation of its own.

You will normally only receive one offer of accommodation. The accommodation may be smaller or in a different area than you might choose, or outside of West Berkshire.

We will normally provide you with temporary accommodation until one of the following happens:

we notify you in writing that we have decided that we do not have a duty to house you
you find a property through the Rent Deposit Guarantee Scheme (if you are eligible)
another council houses you because we have referred you there
you refuse a suitable temporary or permanent home after we have written to you explaining that refusing will mean that your temporary accommodation will end
you leave temporary accommodation that we have provided
you break the rules of your agreement and lose your temporary accommodation
you accept a suitable permanent home

If we accept a duty to house you, you will still be entitled to bid for properties on Homechoice. However, it is likely that you will spend a long time in temporary accommodation before receiving an offer.

Decisions

We will assess your application as quickly as possible.

You will always be given a letter explaining the decision that has been made and the reasons for it.

You can find advice on what to do after you've received a decision.

Personal Housing Plan

Following a housing assessment, you will be provided with a Personalised Housing Plan (PHP). This plan will include the agreed steps we will take to help prevent your homelessness, as well as the reasonable steps you will take to try to prevent yourself from becoming homeless.

The PHP is regularly reviewed to track progress and make sure all housing options are considered.

Duty to refer

The Homelessness Reduction Act places a statutory duty on specific public bodies to refer service users who they think may be homeless, or threatened with homelessness within 56 days, to the relevant local authority.

The following public bodies have a statutory duty to refer:

prisons (public and contracted-out)
youth offender institutions and youth offending teams
secure training centres (public and contracted-out) and colleges
probation services (community rehabilitation companies and national probation service)
Jobcentre Plus
emergency departments
urgent treatment centres, and hospitals in their capacity of providing in-patient treatment
social service authorities (both adult and children's)
Secretary of State for defence in relation to members of the regular armed forces

Before making a referral, you must consider the following:

you must have consent from the individual to make the referral
you must allow the individual to identify the housing authority in England which they would like the notification to be made to
you must have consent from the individual that their contact details can be supplied to the local authority, so that they can contact them regarding the referral

West Berkshire Council will also welcome referrals from any other agency or organisation working with service users who they think may be homeless or at risk of homelessness.

To make a referral, please use the duty to refer ALERT tool, or email dutytorefer@westberks.gov.uk.

The pages below contain further information on helping rough sleepers, homelessness application decisions and our duties.