Homelessness help from Tower Hamlets Council

If you are homeless, or worried you are about to lose your home, contact Tower Hamlets Council today — 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 can begin once you are likely to become homeless within 56 days.^[21]

Contact the council's Housing Options Service on 020 7364 7474 (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 9am to 4.30pm; Wednesday from 10am), email homeless@towerhamlets.gov.uk, or go in person to Tower Hamlets Town Hall, 160 Whitechapel Road, London E1 1BJ.^[17] Outside those hours, and at weekends, the council runs an emergency line on 020 7364 4079 — use it if you have nowhere safe to stay tonight.^[17]

If you are sleeping rough, or worried about someone who is, you can refer them to StreetLink, which alerts the council's outreach team.^[18] Free housing advice from Shelter or Citizens Advice is available at any point, and you can approach the council yourself — no referral is needed.

The council'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.^[21]
• If you are already homeless and eligible, it owes you the relief duty — reasonable steps to help you secure somewhere to live.^[21]
• In both cases it must assess your situation and agree a personalised housing plan with you, setting out the steps you and the council will each take.^[21]
• 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.^[21]

Priority need covers, among others, households with dependent children, pregnant women, people made homeless by an emergency such as a fire or flood, and those who are vulnerable — including as a result of domestic abuse.^[21]

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 — the duty arises before any decision on your application.^[21]

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.^[21]

On the local picture: official statistics recorded 3,123 households in temporary accommodation secured by Tower Hamlets at 31 March 2025 — 2,239 of them households with children.^[19] Placements are often outside the borough: the same statistics recorded 1,620 Tower Hamlets households owed a temporary accommodation duty living in another local authority area.^[20] These are snapshots on a single date, published each quarter from the council's own returns, so newer counts come out through the year.^[19]

Every placement is still bound by law: so far as reasonably practicable the council must house you within Tower Hamlets, 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.^[21] If you think accommodation offered under a duty is unsuitable for your household, you can normally request a review.^[21]

Most important homelessness decisions carry a legal right of review under section 202 of the Housing Act 1996 — including whether you are eligible, what duty the council owes you, decisions ending a duty, and the suitability of accommodation offered to you.^[21] You must ask for the review within 21 days of being told the decision, though the council can allow longer in writing.^[21] 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.^[21]

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.^[32] 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 the council'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.^[29]