Our homelessness duties

Our legal duty to people threatened with homelessness or are homeless

We have a legal duty to people in our area who approach us as homeless or threatened with homelessness.

We also have a duty to those whose situation or living conditions could put them at risk of becoming homeless.

Our duties include:

Duty to make inquiries

We must carry out inquiries if we have reason to believe you're homeless or at risk of homelessness. This allows us to work out what help you may be eligible for.

You can challenge us by judicial review if we did not, or refused to, make inquiries. This means you can submit a claim to court.

Find out more information about judicial reviews on Shelter. 

Prevention duty

If you're threatened with homelessness, we'll work with you to try to prevent you from becoming homeless. This is called a prevention duty.

Our housing officers will usually agree a Personal Housing Plan (PHP) with you. This gives advice about:

  • your housing options
  • housing services available to you
  • reasonable steps you should take to avoid homelessness
  • steps we will take so you do not become homeless
  • our private rented scheme
  • where to look for alternative private accommodation
  • registering for Kent Homechoice, the social housing portal. 

If you become homeless with a PHP plan, we'll find out if we can offer you help under a different duty.

Interim (emergency) accommodation duty

We have a duty to give you emergency accommodation if we believe that you're:

  • homeless
  • eligible for assistance
  • in priority need.

You must meet all of the above criteria.

This accommodation is not permanent. You'll be able to stay until we can either:

  • help find you settled accommodation elsewhere
  • confirm we no longer owe a duty to accommodate you. 

The emergency accommodation must be suitable for you and your other household members. If it's not suitable you should contact us to discuss further.

Relief duty

Relief duty starts when we confirm you're homeless and eligible for help.

We'll work with you and help you find accommodation for at least 6 months. We'll also make a Personal Housing Plan (PHP) with you.

The relief duty sits with the council you have made a homelessness application to. For example, if you applied to Medway Council, the duty sits with us. However, you may be referred to another council if you have a stronger local connection in that area.

Our relief duty ends and main housing duty starts if:

  • we cannot help you find accommodation within 56 days
  • you have a priority need
  • you are not intentionally homeless. 

Relief duty can end earlier than 56 days. For example, if you find your own accommodation or we find you suitable accommodation. 

Find out more about when relief duty can end on Shelter's website. 

Main housing duty

Main housing duty starts when the relief duty has ended. We must be satisfied that you're still:

  • homeless
  • eligible for help
  • in priority need (for example you're pregnant, have children or have medical conditions)
  • not intentionally homeless.

We must provide you with suitable accommodation. This could include temporary accommodation or longer-term housing.

Our main housing duty ends when you accept a suitable offer of accommodation, such as a tenancy. It will also end if we establish that you're no longer homeless or eligible for help.

Information and advice duty

We must make information and advice about homelessness available to everyone. This information should be useful and usable for a large number of people, even if they're not homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Advice should be available for specific groups including:

  • prison leavers
  • people retiring
  • armed forces veterans
  • victims of domestic abuse. 

We can use different channels and formats to provide information to people with particular needs. For example, those with:

  • sight loss
  • hearing loss
  • learning difficulties.

This information and advice can include:

  • how to prevent homelessness
  • where to get accommodation if you're homeless
  • the rights when you're homeless or threatened with homelessness
  • what our duties are
  • help you can get from us and other organisations
  • how to get help. 

You can find much of this information in our homelessness strategy. The strategy details how we will prevent and deal with homelessness.

Download: