Homelessness help from Harrow Council

If you are homeless today, or worried you are about to lose your home, ask Harrow 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.^[22]

In the daytime, the council asks you to apply through its online homeless enquiry form, or — if your situation is urgent — to call a housing advice officer on 020 8424 1093 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.^[18]

Outside those hours, and at weekends, calls to that number are diverted to the council's emergency social services team, which can help if you have nowhere safe to stay tonight.^[18]

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.

Harrow's duties come from Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 — the same in every English council, and set out in full on the general homelessness guide. Which duty you are owed depends on your situation.

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.^[22] If you are already homeless, it owes you the relief duty — reasonable steps to help you secure somewhere to live.^[22] In both cases the council must first assess your circumstances and agree a personalised housing plan with you, recording the steps you and the council will each take.^[22]

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.^[22]

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, disability, mental illness or another special reason; and — automatically, with no vulnerability test — people who are homeless as a result of domestic abuse.^[22]

If Harrow 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.^[22]

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.^[22]

On the local picture: the council reported 1,350 households living in temporary accommodation in Harrow at the end of 2024, of which 573 — around 43% — were placed outside the borough.^[20]

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.^[22] If you think accommodation offered under a duty is unsuitable for your household, you can normally ask for a review.^[22]

Many homelessness decisions can be challenged. Section 202 of the Housing Act 1996 gives you the right to ask the council to review a decision — for example that you are not homeless or not eligible, that you are not in priority need or became homeless intentionally, a decision that ends a duty, or the suitability of accommodation offered to you.^[22] Ask within 21 days of being told the decision, though the council can extend that in writing. If the review is not in your favour — or the council misses the deadline for deciding it — you can take a point of law to the county court under section 204, again within 21 days.^[22]

Act quickly and keep every decision in writing, because the time limits are tight. You do not have to manage it alone: homelessness advice and representation is within the scope of civil legal aid, so a legal aid solicitor can help with a review or appeal free of charge if you qualify — find one through the government's Find a Legal Aid Adviser service.^[36] Shelter, Citizens Advice and local law centres also give free housing advice.

A complaint is a different route from a review. If your issue is how the council handled your case — delay, lost paperwork, being passed from person to person — take it through Harrow's own complaints procedure and then to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which oversees council homelessness functions. The Housing Ombudsman handles complaints about social landlords, not homelessness decisions, and neither ombudsman replaces a section 202 review or a section 204 appeal.^[33]