Our Housing Solutions Team can help you if you are homeless, or if you are likely to lose your home soon.
It is best if you approach us as soon as you are threatened with homelessness as this gives us more time to prevent you from becoming homeless and a greater chance of success.
The council is committed to helping you keep your home if at all possible. We have a team of housing advisors who can help you to remain in your existing home in the following ways:
- we can assess your current housing situation and work out what your needs are
- if you are worried that you might become homeless, we can give you advice on the next steps
- we will work with you to create a personal housing plan after your assessment. The personal housing plan sets out the steps that you and the council must take to stop you becoming homeless or find housing if you've already lost your home
- we can liaise with your landlord or, if you are living with friends or relatives, the person who has asked you to leave, in order to see if there is anything we can do so that they will not go through with evicting you
- we can help you to flee domestic violence and access refuge space/move away from your partner
If you are experiencing financial difficulty our team might be able to help you in these ways:
- we can support you with budgeting and managing your money at home
- if you have rent arrears, we can try to negotiate with your landlord to agree a payment plan
- we can make sure you are claiming all the benefits to which you are entitled
- by supporting you to apply for a Discretionary Housing Payment to assist with housing costs
- we can advise on getting a smaller, more financially manageable home
If it is not possible to keep you in your existing home:
- we can offer you advice and support in finding new accommodation in the private sector
- if you need help with monies in order to secure a new property, we will often be able to help by lending you these monies on an interest-free basis under our Rent and Deposit Scheme
- we can support you to join our Homeseekers’ Register to apply for social housing
- we can advise you of other support available from the Council, such as the Private Sector Housing Team, Aids and Adaptations, Housing Benefit, Social Care.
- if you have support needs, we can arrange a referral to Accesspoint, where you can be considered for supported accommodation
- we can signpost you towards support from partner organisations such as the Peabody Trust, Homeless Action Resource Project (HARP), Southend On Sea Domestic Abuse Partnership (SoSDAP), Southend Treatment And Recovery Service (STARS), Citizens Advice Southend or health services
- under Housing law, if you have children that live with you, if you are pregnant or significantly vulnerable, or if your home has become uninhabitable due to a fire or flood, you are considered to be in priority need for housing. If this is the case, we will in most cases have a duty to find you somewhere to stay temporarily while we look at whether we'll be able to find you somewhere to stay permanently.
- if you do not meet the threshold for accessing the council’s temporary accommodation, it is sometimes possible for you to access an emergency night shelter although spaces are often full and places cannot be guaranteed. Emergency shelter can be very simple, shared space