Personal Housing Plan
St Leger Homes create a Personal Housing Plan with when completing a homelessness assessment with you. The aim of the plan is to give you step-by-step guidance and tasks to help you find suitable accommodation to live in for at least the next 6 months.
The Personal Housing Plan sets out the steps that you and the council must take to
- Stop you becoming homeless
- Find housing if you have already lost your home
We agree to any steps included in the plan. If you do not agree the council decides what steps you must take and records the reasons you disagree on the plan.
The focus in the housing plan is to prevent you from becoming homeless if your home is safe and affordable. If the above isn’t possible we must try to help you find another suitable home.
We will reassess your situation if it changes and update the plan to make it tailor matched to you.
The help that we could offer you to keep your home includes
- Support to claim benefits
- Advice on tenancy rights or debt
- Negotiation with your landlord or family
- Grants or loans to pay off rent or mortgage arrears
The help we could offer to help you find a home includes
- Help to find a private tenancy
- Payment towards a deposit or rent in advance
- An offer of council housing or housing association home
Steps you could be advised to take to keep or find a home include
- Apply to the housing register
- Looking for an affordable private tenancy
- Get benefits or debt advice
- Take part in mediation
How long the plan lasts -
If your landlord has given you a Section 21 notice the council must usually help for as long as you are threatened with homelessness.
In other cases help, under a Personal Housing Plan, is usually limited to
- 8 weeks while threatened with homelessness
- A further 8 weeks when homeless
If you remain homeless after 8 weeks of help the council decides if you qualify for longer term housing. This is when the council has decided you are owed a 'Main Housing Duty'.
The council can stop helping you if -
- You have or refused suitable housing
- Your housing situation is resolved, for example, you find somewhere else to live or your landlord or parents agree that you can stay
- There must be a reasonable chance that suitable housing will be available for at least 6 months
- In many cases we can also stop helping if you refuse a suitable housing offer
If you do not keep to the plan -
- We can stop helping if we think you have deliberately and unreasonably refused to take a required step in your plan. We will give you a written warning and reasonable time to do what is asked of you before we end our assistance
- If you are already homeless any ongoing help from us depends on whether you qualify for longer-term housing
- If you are not yet homeless you can still ask for help if you become homeless later
Challenge the decision -
- We must write to you and explain why we no longer have to help
- You can ask for a review if you think the decision is wrong