Homelessness help from Haringey Council

If you are homeless tonight, or worried you are about to lose your home, ask Haringey Council for help straight away — it cannot turn you away without looking at your case. You do not have to wait until you are on the street: for anyone eligible, the council's duties begin once you are likely to become homeless within 56 days.^[26]

In the evening, at the weekend or on a bank holiday, call the council's out-of-hours emergency line on 020 8489 0000 if you have nowhere safe to stay — its emergencies service covers emergency homelessness accommodation.^[20]

In the daytime, the quickest way to apply is the council's online homelessness application form; if you are already homeless and have nowhere safe to stay, you can also call 020 8489 1000.^[18] The council says it will contact you within 2 working days of receiving the form.^[18] It then carries out a holistic assessment — the council says this is likely to take up to 10 days — before agreeing a personal housing plan with you.^[19]

If you are sleeping rough, or worried about someone who is, you can alert local outreach services through StreetLink. Free housing advice from Shelter or Citizens Advice is available at any point, and you can approach the council yourself directly.

Haringey's duties come from Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and are the same in every English council — the general homelessness guide explains each in detail. In short:

• If you are eligible and likely to become homeless within 56 days, the council owes you the prevention duty — reasonable steps to help you keep your home, or find another before you lose it.^[26]
• If you are already homeless and eligible, it owes you the relief duty — reasonable steps to help you secure somewhere to live.^[26]
• In both cases it must assess your circumstances and agree a personalised housing plan with you.^[26]
• If you are eligible, in priority need and did not become homeless intentionally, the main housing duty can follow once the relief duty ends — the council must then secure accommodation for your household until the duty ends in one of the ways the law allows.^[26]

Haringey describes how this works in practice: after you apply, it carries out a holistic assessment and develops a personal housing plan with you, setting out the reasonable steps you, the council and any other professionals will each take to prevent or relieve your homelessness.^[19]

Priority need covers, among others: households with dependent children; pregnant women; people made homeless by an emergency such as a fire or flood; people who are vulnerable because of old age, mental illness, disability or another special reason; and — automatically, with no vulnerability test — people who are homeless as a result of domestic abuse.^[26]

If Haringey has reason to believe you may be homeless, eligible and in priority need, it must secure interim accommodation for you while it looks into your case — the duty arises before any decision on your application.^[26]

Whatever is provided must be suitable for your whole household. For households with dependent children or a pregnant member, bed and breakfast accommodation can be used only where nothing else is available — and then for no more than 6 weeks in total.^[26]

On the local picture: the council reported more than 2,600 Haringey households living in temporary accommodation at the end of October 2025.^[23] In February 2026 it said it had ended the use of hotels for families in temporary accommodation, after moving 75 families into self-contained accommodation since October 2025.^[24]

Wherever you are placed, the law applies: so far as reasonably practicable the council must house you within its own district, and in judging suitability it must take account of disruption to your work, caring responsibilities and children's schooling, and your access to medical care and support.^[26] If you think accommodation offered under a duty is unsuitable for your household, you can normally ask for a review.^[26]

You can ask for a review of most significant homelessness decisions — the right comes from section 202 of the Housing Act 1996 — including whether you are homeless or eligible, whether you are in priority need or intentionally homeless, decisions ending a duty, and the suitability of accommodation offered to you.^[26] You must request the review within 21 days of being told the decision, though the council can allow longer in writing. If the review goes against you, or you are not told the outcome within the prescribed time, you can appeal to the county court on a point of law under section 204 — again within 21 days.^[26]

Get the council's decision in writing and move quickly — the deadlines are short. You do not have to do this alone: homelessness is within the scope of civil legal aid, so advice and representation on a review or appeal from a legal aid solicitor can be free if you qualify — search with the government's Find a Legal Aid Adviser service.^[40] Free housing advice from Shelter, Citizens Advice or a local law centre is available at any stage.

If your complaint is about how the council handled your case — delays, lost paperwork, poor communication — rather than the decision itself, use Haringey's complaints procedure first and then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which covers council homelessness functions. The Housing Ombudsman deals with complaints about social landlords, not homelessness decisions — and the ombudsman route is not a substitute for a section 202 review or a section 204 appeal.^[37]