Prevention of Homelessness and Provision of Accommodation for 16 and 17 Year Olds who may be Homeless and/or Require Accommodation; and Duty to Refer

SCOPE OF THIS CHAPTER

This chapter links to statutory guidance:

Prevention of Homelessness and Provision of accommodation for 16 and 17 year old young people who may be homeless and/or require accommodation (2018): This guidance is solely concerned with the functions of children's services and housing services when young people seek help from, or are referred to, local authorities because of homelessness or being threatened with homelessness. It incorporates judgements made in the House of Lords over several years around the duties of local authorities under Section 20 (Children Act 1989) and Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996. The guidance also reflects the duties introduced under the Homelessness Reduction Act (2017);
Homelessness - Duty to Refer: the Homelessness Reduction Act (2017) places a duty on specified public authorities to refer service users who they think may be homeless or threatened with homelessness to local authority homelessness/housing options teams. The guidance provides helpful information and detail on the referral process which is brought out in additional links below.

AMENDMENT

This chapter was updated in August 2021 to add a link to Joint Housing Protocols for Care Leavers: good practice advice (DfE and MHCLG) to support the development of joint protocols that can help local authorities to meet the accommodation needs of care leavers. (See Section 4, Housing Protocols for Care Leavers).

1. Prevention of Homelessness and Provision of Accommodation for 16 and 17 Year Old Young People who may be Homeless and/or Require Accommodation

Young people may become homeless for a variety of reasons. However, family breakdown, mental health concerns and unemployment are often major contributing factors to this. 16 and 17 year olds who are homeless or threatened with homelessness are likely to be vulnerable and will often be at risk of harm in the absence of intervention. Safeguarding and promoting their welfare should be central to service provision. It is therefore important that children's services and housing services work together to plan and provide services that are centred on young people and their families, and prevent young people from being passed back and forth between services.

2. Homelessness: Duty to Refer

See: A guide to the duty to refer (GOV.UK).

In October 2018, the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 came into effect and provided new duties on local housing authorities to intervene at an earlier stage in order to reduce the risk of homelessness.

The guide to the duty to refer identifies a person is considered homeless if:

They do not have any accommodation which is available for them which they have a legal right to occupy; or
It is not reasonable for the person to occupy their current accommodation, for example, because they would be at risk of domestic abuse.

3. Homelessness: Code of Guidance - Referral Process

See: Homelessness code of guidance for local authorities (GOV.UK).

This guidance advises that the service user must:

Consent to the referral being completed in the first place;
Allow the individual to identify the housing authority in England which they would like the notification to be sent to;
Have consent from the individual for their contact details to be supplied so the housing authority can contact them regarding the referral.

See Lewisham Support for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

4. Housing Protocols for Care Leavers

See: Joint Housing Protocols for Care Leavers: good practice advice (DfE and MHCLG) 2020.

5. Further Information

For Further Information please see: