Homelessness help from Lewisham Council

If you are homeless tonight, or worried you are about to lose your home, ask Lewisham 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.^[27]

Contact the council's homelessness service on its freephone number, 0808 178 0939, if you are homeless or likely to become homeless.^[23] If the offices are closed and you have nowhere to sleep tonight, call the council's out-of-hours line, 020 8314 7007, for emergency housing help.^[23]

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 always approach the council yourself directly.

Lewisham'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 one 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.^[27]
• If you are already homeless and eligible, it owes you the relief duty — reasonable steps to help you secure accommodation, and it works with you for up to 56 days.^[27]
• In both cases it must assess your circumstances and agree a personalised housing plan with you, recording the steps you and the council will each take.^[27]
• 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 secure accommodation for your household until that duty ends in one of the ways the law allows.^[27]

These Part 7 duties sit with the council as the local housing authority, whoever your landlord is — so a housing association tenant facing homelessness applies to the council too.

If the council 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 — this duty arises before any decision on your application.^[27]

Whatever is provided must be suitable for your whole household. For households that include a pregnant woman or dependent children, bed and breakfast accommodation can be used only where nothing else is available, and then for no more than 6 weeks.^[27]

Lewisham says it tries to find temporary accommodation within the borough, but that this is not always possible and it may place households anywhere in or outside London. While it assesses an application it will usually place you in hostel accommodation, and some of its temporary accommodation is nightly-paid, short-term bed and breakfast.^[24]

The law still applies to every placement: the council must secure accommodation in its own district so far as reasonably practicable, and must weigh the location's effect on your work, caring responsibilities, children's education and the support you rely on.^[27] If you think accommodation offered under a duty is unsuitable for your household, you can normally ask for a review — though emergency accommodation provided while the council is still investigating is challenged differently.^[27]

You can ask for a review of most important homelessness decisions — the right comes from section 202 of the Housing Act 1996.^[27] Reviewable decisions include whether you are homeless or eligible, whether you are in priority need or became homeless intentionally, decisions ending a duty, and the suitability of accommodation offered to you.^[27]

You must ask for a review within 21 days of being told of 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.^[27] Treat the deadline as fixed, and get advice quickly.

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.^[41] Shelter and Citizens Advice offer free housing advice 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 the council's complaints procedure first and then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. That route is not a substitute for a section 202 review or a section 204 appeal.^[38]