Homelessness process management overview

It is widely recognised that allocating sufficient resources to preventing homelessness has a significant positive impact on reducing the pressures felt by wider services and support agencies over the longer term, such as housing, health and employment. Also, early intervention in homelessness cases, well before the 'crisis point' has been reached, is considerably preferable to dealing reactively to a situation in which a person has already lost their home. In identifying all potential cases of homelessness within their locality, a housing authority will consider and act upon data from a range of useful resources, including:

Estimate figures of those people staying with friends or family on an insecure basis
Records of tenant evictions processed by the local authority and registered social landlords
Access to prison and probation service records, capturing the number of ex-prisoners that are classified as homeless on discharge
Data collected from the national population census as well as metrics gathered through surveys initiated directly by the housing authority
Social service records of families with children who are known to be homeless, as well as young people leaving care who will require accommodation
Consultation with charitable organisations on those people known to be rough sleeping.

Under government legislation, the main homelessness duty placed on a housing authority is to ensure that suitable accommodation, either secured from their own stock or arranged through another landlord, is available for people who have a priority need and are identified as eligible for assistance. This priority need is typically ring-fenced for certain types of household who are unintentionally homeless, such as those families with children, or those where at least one member is categorised as vulnerable, perhaps because of pregnancy, old age, or physical or mental disability. A housing authority is seen as the main point of contact for people seeking advice and information about homelessness and the prevention thereof, which will either be provided directly by them or through a partner agency, and invariably act as a signpost to other more specialist guidance on, say, debt management, health care, coping with drug and alcohol abuse, etc. A comprehensive service, offering advice and information about not only housing options but also the broadest range of contributory factors in successfully preventing homelessness - social security benefits, household budgeting, tenancy support services, family mediation services - can be managed and tracked through Civica Cx Housing, with all discussions, prevention measures, applications, outcomes and reviews captured within a consolidated homelessness case. The framework and progression of each case is governed by the assigned activities, which can be thought of as the key focus areas for the assigned owner; with the inherent tasks providing the greatest granularity for all required actions. Naturally, these activities will be closely-aligned to the homelessness strategy published by each housing authority, and can be added to an open case as the inquiries unfold.

Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of homelessness process management, including: