What we do: preventing homelessness with Housing Options
The Housing Options service supports households who need assistance with accommodation, find out how in this What We Do blog post.
When you tell people you work in a ‘Housing Options Department’, you’re often met with blank stares. Similarly, if you tell people that you support homeless people to find accommodation, they generally think of Outreach Workers supporting rough sleepers. However, this is not the case. Unless they’ve experienced homelessness first hand, many people are unaware that each local authority has a specific department to support households who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
A statutory department
The Housing Options service is a ‘statutory department’. By this, I mean that our work is regulated by law (specifically Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996). The service has a few main objectives:
- Provide general advice and assistance on housing related matters.
- Work with households who are threatened with homelessness to prevent them from becoming homeless.
- Work with households who are homeless to secure alternative accommodation.
- Provide suitable temporary accommodation to vulnerable homeless households.
How it works
When someone completes an application for assistance, their application is triaged and passed onto the relevant team. If the applicant is homeless or threatened with homelessness, their case will be allocated to one of the Council’s Housing Options Advisors who will work with them to either prevent them from becoming homeless or help them to secure accommodation. The Officer will develop a personalised housing plan (PHP) which includes the actions that should be taken to find accommodation.
Team structure
Our team is quite big and there are various roles. For instance, we have a whole team who manage the Council’s owned and leased accommodation and work to secure suitable temporary accommodation for vulnerable homeless households. In addition, we also have Private Rented Sector Officers who work with households to find accommodation in the private rented sector.
Challenges
I’ve been working in Housing Options for around nine years now and it’s never been more difficult to secure accommodation. Unfortunately, the supply of social/council housing is far outweighed by the demand, and it can be difficult for households on low incomes to afford privately rented accommodation. Despite this, the team is really hard working and we do whatever we can to support households in need.
How to get assistance
The whole point of the Housing Options service is to help households who require accommodation support. If anyone has any housing concerns and requires assistance, the team would encourage them to complete an application for assistance on the Kent HomeChoice website.
