Homelessness help from Waltham Forest Council

If you are homeless, or worried you are about to lose your home, ask Waltham Forest 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.^[15]

Contact the council's housing options service on 020 8496 3000, or make a self-referral online through its housing options portal. If you have nowhere safe to sleep tonight, call the same number.^[11] Out of hours, you can still call 020 8496 3000, or go to your local police station.^[11]

If you are sleeping rough, or worried about someone who is, you can alert local outreach services through StreetLink. Call the emergency services if someone needs urgent medical help.

Free housing advice from Shelter or Citizens Advice is available at any point — and you can always approach the council yourself directly.

Waltham Forest's duties come from Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996. They are the same for every council in England, and the general homelessness guide sets each one out in full. In short:

• If you are eligible and likely to lose your home within 56 days, the council owes you the prevention duty — reasonable steps to help you keep your home, or to line up somewhere else before you become homeless.^[15]
• Once you are actually homeless and eligible, that becomes the relief duty — reasonable steps to help you find somewhere to live.^[15]
• Either way, the council must assess your case and record, in a personalised housing plan, the steps it and you will each take.^[15]
• If you are also in priority need and did not make yourself homeless on purpose, the main housing duty can take over when the relief duty ends, and the council must then secure accommodation for your household until that duty ends in one of the ways the law allows.^[15]

What you qualify for can depend on your immigration and residence status; the general guide explains who is eligible.^[15]

If the council has reason to believe you may be homeless, eligible and in priority need, it must arrange interim accommodation for you while it looks into your case — that duty arises before it makes any decision on your application.^[15]

Whatever it provides must be suitable for your whole household. For households with dependent children or a pregnant member, bed and breakfast accommodation may be used only where nothing else is available, and then for no more than six weeks.^[15]

On the local picture, Waltham Forest says temporary accommodation is arranged at short notice, so it could be located anywhere in the borough — or elsewhere, if there is no suitable accommodation available locally.^[13] 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, your caring responsibilities, your children's schooling and the support you rely on.^[15] If you think accommodation offered under a duty is unsuitable, you can normally ask for a review.^[15]

Section 202 of the Housing Act 1996 gives you the right to have most important homelessness decisions looked at again.^[15] That covers decisions on:

• your eligibility, or whether you count as homeless
• priority need, or a finding of intentional homelessness
• the council bringing a duty to an end
• whether accommodation offered to you is suitable.^[15]

Ask in writing, through the housing options team that handled your application; your decision letter should say where to send it. The deadline is short — normally 21 days from the date you are told the decision — and the council does not have to consider a late request, so don't let it slip. A review that goes against you, or that you never hear back about in time, can then go to the county court on a point of law under section 204.^[15]

Homelessness cases fall within civil legal aid, so a legal aid solicitor can advise on and run a review or appeal at no cost if you qualify — check through the government's Find a Legal Aid Adviser tool.^[30] Shelter and Citizens Advice also give free housing advice throughout.

A complaint about how your case was handled — rather than what was decided — goes through Waltham Forest's own complaints process first, then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman if you are still unhappy. That route cannot substitute for a section 202 review or a section 204 appeal, which have their own strict deadlines.^[27]