Duties to prevent and relieve homelessness

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 means:

• we have duties to prevent and relieve homelessness
• you must take action to prevent yourself from becoming homeless or to end your homelessness and you must work with us to achieve this

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 in the UK
• at risk of becoming homeless within 56 days (eight weeks)

This is called the prevention duty, and it means we must take reasonable steps to help prevent you from becoming homeless. This duty lasts for 56 days.

Relief duty

If we can’t prevent you from becoming homeless during the prevention duty period, we will take steps to find you suitable accommodation that will last for at least six months. We have 56 days to find you accommodation during the relief duty period.

Personal housing plan

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

We will undertake a detailed assessment of why you are threatened with homelessness, 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 is an important document, as it sets out all the reasonable things that you need to do and that we will do to help you. You need to co-operate with the steps set out in your personal housing plan to end your homelessness or the threat of homelessness.

Homelessness decision

If you are still homeless when the relief duty period ends, we will make a decision about whether we owe you any further housing duty. We will usually only accept a full duty to house you for 12 months if you:

• are in priority need
• are not intentionally homeless
• have a local connection to Oxford

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

Refusal to co-operate

If we think you are deliberately or unreasonably refusing to cooperate with the steps agreed in your personal housing plan, we can end any prevention or relief duty. We will tell you before we do this, and if you disagree with our decision you have the right to ask for a review

What to do if you disagree with our decision

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 co-operate over your personal housing plan.

Contacting us for further advice

If you are homeless or threatened with homelessness please call 01865 249811 as soon as possible.  You can also look at our web pages here for further advice:

Seek other accomodation if you are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless

Related pages

• Report concern about someone experiencing rough sleeping
• Duty to refer someone who is homeless or at risk of homelessness