Upping and moving with nowhere to go?

heretolearn_2

Where I lived until a few years ago the waiting list for a one bedroom or studio property for one person was 11 years.

eadieb

to present as homeless to a local authority you usually need to have been resident for about 6 months or have some sort of other family connection, or (sometimes) lived there for 3 of the last 5 years. The exception is if you are escaping domestic violence.

then they assess if you are a vulnerable status (single people would need something like a physical or mental health problem) and you have to prove that you are worse off on the streets than the average single person would be.

then they assess if you are actually homeless and if you are intentional or not intentional homeless. A person leaving a tenancy or family home voluntarily would usually be seen as intentional homeless unless they had a very good reason as to why they can no longer stay there.

if you are a social housing tenant then I would suggest you try homeswapping. if you are private renting then maybe try camping for a week or two - and doing some research - without giving up what you have now. You might phone some local councils housing departments up, of areas you fancy, and ask them how much the local private rents are for a 1 bed and how much their local housing allowance is.

remember - if you are under 35 then you now only get the single person rent allowance in private rents which in our area is about £65 per week. also in many areas, being accepted as homeless does not now mean you automatically get social housing as councils can now re house people into private rented as long as the tenancy is for 12 months.