Homelessness help from Wandsworth Council

Ask for help straight away. If you have nowhere to stay tonight, or you are about to lose your home, contact the council now — it cannot turn you away without looking at your case. You do not have to wait until you have nowhere left to go: for anyone eligible, the council's duties begin once you are likely to become homeless within 56 days.^[19]

Phone the homelessness team. Call Wandsworth's homelessness team on 020 8871 6161; you can also email homelessprevention@wandsworth.gov.uk or ask the council to call you back.^[13]

Outside service hours. The council says most of its services are available 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Outside those hours — or if you need help making an enquiry at any time — call the council on 020 8871 6000; its out-of-hours service handles emergencies.^[14]

In person. The Housing Customer Centre at 90 Putney Bridge Road, London SW18 1HR sees people by appointment, with reception open 9am to 4.30pm — so phone first.^[13]

If you are sleeping rough. A StreetLink referral at thestreetlink.org.uk alerts local outreach teams, and the council signposts SPEAR, a south-west London charity whose outreach workers help people off the street into accommodation and support.^[16]

Free advice. Housing advice from Shelter and free help from Citizens Advice are available at any point — and you can approach the council yourself directly.

Wandsworth's duties come from Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and are the same in every English borough — the general homelessness guide explains each one in depth. In summary: 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.^[19] If you are eligible and already homeless, it owes you the relief duty — reasonable steps to help you secure somewhere suitable to live.^[19] It must assess your circumstances and record the steps you and it will each take in a personalised housing plan.^[19] For applicants who are eligible, in priority need and not intentionally homeless, 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 sets out.^[19] The council's published process runs from a first conversation about your situation, through supplying documents and an interview at the Housing Customer Centre, to a caseworker assessment and a written decision on whether a full duty is owed.^[14] Advice to help you find accommodation is available to everyone who applies; emergency housing while your case is looked into depends on the council having reason to believe you may be homeless, eligible and in priority need.^[19]

If the council has reason to believe you may be homeless, eligible and in priority need, it must secure interim accommodation while it looks into your case — the duty arises before any decision on your application.^[19] Anything the council secures must be suitable for your whole household; bed and breakfast for households with dependent children or a pregnant member can be used only where nothing else is available, and then for no more than 6 weeks; and the council must secure accommodation in its own district so far as reasonably practicable, weighing the effect on work, caring responsibilities, education and health.^[19]

Wandsworth's own placement policy says it aims to place households within 60 minutes' travel by public transport of Clapham Junction, in the borough where it can, and treats affordability — including any benefit cap — as decisive; where it places a household outside Wandsworth it notifies the receiving council under section 208 of the Housing Act 1996.^[17] The council reported providing temporary accommodation for 3,841 households as at 31 March 2024, up from 3,663 a year earlier, and by the end of June 2025 about 55% of that accommodation was within the borough, 14% in adjoining boroughs and 31% elsewhere in or beyond London.^[17] Those are the council's own dated figures — useful context when weighing up an offer or a placement location. Across England, 134,210 households were in temporary accommodation on 31 December 2025.^[18] If a placement seems unsuitable for your household, you can ask the council to review it.^[19]

Most significant homelessness decisions carry a right of review under section 202 of the Housing Act 1996 — including whether you are eligible, what duty you are owed, the steps in your personalised housing plan, a referral of your case to another council, and the suitability of accommodation offered to you; you must ask for the review within 21 days of being told the decision, though the council can allow longer in writing.^[19] If the review goes against you, or you are not told the outcome in time, you can appeal to the county court on a point of law under section 204, again within 21 days of the review decision.^[19] Make your review request in writing to the council, and keep a copy of everything, including the date you sent it. You do not have to handle it alone: homelessness is within the scope of civil legal aid, so advice and representation from a legal aid solicitor on a review or appeal can be free if you qualify, and Shelter, Citizens Advice and local law centres can help you find one.^[28] If your complaint is about how the council handled your case — delays, lost documents, no response — 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, so never let the review deadline pass while a complaint is being looked at.^[25]