Slough Borough Council - Homeless or at risk

Prevention and relief

Our main priority is to prevent you from becoming homeless. We provide appropriate advice and assistance to your circumstances to avoid the stressful and unpleasant experience of becoming homeless.

Do you need housing advice? Are you about to be made homeless?

If you feel you:

• are under the threat of becoming homelessness within 56 days
• are homeless
• and/or are struggling to secure alternative accommodation

Do you have access to the internet?

If so, you can now contact us directly at any time, simply register yourself via the link below, it is easy to use. Tell us what the problem is and an officer will contact you, the following working day e.g. Monday – Friday.

• Housing Jigsaw Customer Portal

Alternatively you can call us on 01753 475111.

The earlier you discuss your situation with us, the better chance we have to prevent you from becoming homeless.

Concerned about someone sleeping rough?

If you are concerned about an adult you've seen sleeping rough, use the StreetLink website to send an alert . If you think the person sleeping rough is under 18, please call the police on 999.

Streetlink will ask you to provide:

• a specific location for the rough sleeping site
• the time you saw the rough sleeper
• any information about the rough sleeper that will help find them (gender, approximate age, what the person looks like, what they are wearing).

If you saw the rough sleeper in Slough, StreetLink will send us the details you provided. If it was in another local authority area, StreetLink will contact their homeless outreach services.

Your information will help the authority's outreach service find the individual and connect them to support.

StreetLink will tell you about the action the local authority normally takes when they are told someone is sleeping rough in their area. If you've asked for an update, you can get details of what happened because of your alert.

You can also email roughsleeping@slough.gov.uk with details about the rough sleeper, the time you saw them and the location for the rough sleeping site.

Duty to refer

If you are a statutory agency with a ‘Duty to refer’ under the Homeless Reduction Act, please email: dutytorefer@slough.gov.uk for more details on making a referral and a link to ‘ALERT’.

What is the duty to refer?

The Homeless Reduction Act introduces a new duty to refer requiring specified public authorities in England to notify LHAs of service users they think may be homeless or threatened with becoming homeless in 56 days. The public authority must have consent from the individual before referring them and the individual should identify which LHA they would like to be referred to, as they would if approaching a housing authority directly.

Which public authorities have the duty to refer?

From October 2018, the following services will be required to refer service users they consider may be homeless or at risk:

• prisons (public and private)
• youth offender institutions
• secure training centres
• secure colleges
• youth offending teams
• probation services (community rehabilitation companies and national probation service)
• Jobcentre Plus
• accident and emergency services provided in a hospital
• urgent treatment centres (include services locally designated as such, and all other providers of community and primary urgent care, including services locally designated as urgent care centres, minor injury units, minor injury services and walk in centres)
• hospitals in their capacity of providing in-patient treatment (Inpatient care means persons who are receiving medical or other treatment as inpatients (admitted patients) in a hospital), and
• social service authorities.

The Secretary of State for Defence is also subject to the duty to refer in relation to members of the regular forces. The regular forces are the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, the regular army and the Royal Air Force.

Homefinder UK

There is shortage of social (council) housing in Slough, but other areas across the UK have more availability. Homefinder UK helps those who are homeless and on the council waiting list find permanent social housing. For more information see the Homefinder UK page.

Housing register

Please note: being homeless does not give you the right to a permanent council tenancy. It is likely we will assist you in securing alternative privately rented accommodation. Applying as homeless does not give you automatic access to a permanent council home/social housing - you will have to qualify in accordance with Slough Borough Council’s Allocations policy. The housing register applications are assessed and managed by the Allocation and Lettings team. All offers of council accommodation and nominations to housing associations are made through the council's housing register.

The applying for a home page gives more details about how the housing register works and how to make an application.