living in council temporary accommodation

max27

I am currently living in temporary accommodation because me my partner and my one year old son were about to become homeless , I recently got a letted saying I am entitled to be rehoused . I was just wondering how long would I be in temp accommodation before the council give me somewhere. As the place I am in now is in a very bad area .

Mara69

How long is a piece of string? There is no way anyone can answer that, it depends on your council, your circumstances, where they have housed you temporarily, how much stock they have. Many years ago (and I am going back 23 years) I was in a hostel for 18 months - then I was offered (and accepted) a flat on the 17th floor of a tower block.

Do you they use the choice based lettings system? If so, make sure you bid every week and don't be too choosy. Really, if you want a home in a 'nicer' area you might want to consider private lettings. Most council homes tend to be on large estates.

BigAunty

What does your local council website say about the procedure? I've read some London council websites because of queries raised on this forum before by London homeless and found their info about the homelessness process, their obligations and constraints, to be very clear,including things like the turnover of vacant properties versus the demand for them.

The Shelter England website also has good info on the homelessness and local council process.

AFAIK, in November in England, the law changed that means a local council has no obligation to offer social housing to the homeless now - they can now discharge their responsibilities by offering a 12 month private tenancy in a suitable property so perhaps this will speed things up now that homeless households don't suffer the bottleneck of social housing demand. This, I believe, I applies to new homelessness applicants after the law was introduced via the 'Localism Act', it doesn't apply to applicants whose claims were processed before the law was introduced.

No-one here can tell you - it really depends on the numbers of homeless that the council are dealing with versus the new private tenancies and social housing vacancies that come up. It's pretty much unknowable though your council might give you a rough estimate based on previous cases.

How many homeless cases is your council dealing with at the moment? Some have hundreds.

midnight_express

It could be years and even you do get housed it's likely to be somewhere grotty and dangerous. Most of the decent social housing in London was sold off years ago.