Housing Advice Following Hospital Discharge
The information below is for people being discharged form hospital who are seeking housing advice from Erewash Borough Council. It provides information on support that may be available to you to help you remain in your accommodation or finding somewhere else to live.
If you need any practical support for when you are released from hospital to assist you with daily tasks The Derbyshire Home from Hospital Support Service may be able to offer up to 6 weeks of practical support for people coming out of hospital (shopping, signposting to community connections, picking up medication).
If you are threatened with homelessness?
If you think you will be made homeless in the next 56 days and you cannot find your own accommodation, you can approach any local authority in England to ask for assistance. Providing you are eligible, the council will assess your needs and draw up a plan to help you to resolve your housing problem.
This plan will include steps that you and the council can take to find a solution to try to prevent you from becoming homeless. This could involve, for example, negotiating with your landlord, securing debt advice, maximising benefits or referring you to other relevant support services. If your property no longer meets your needs because it requires adaptations you may be able to apply for a disabled grant
Erewash Borough Council has a number of homeless prevention tools that we can use in order to prevent your homelessness. These include but are not limited to:
• Debt Advice
• Bond Guarantee Scheme
• Re-housing in the private and social rented sector through Home Options.
• Discretionary Housing Payments
• Referrals into supported accommodation
If you are already homeless?
If the Council cannot prevent you becoming homeless, and you have nowhere to go now your Housing Options officer will carry out an assessment to decide if you have what is referred to as a ‘priority need’. This means that that you are considered to be more vulnerable than the average person who is homeless and the likelihood of harm to you. One factor the council will consider is whether or not you are vulnerable so it is very important that you provide your officer with any information you wish them to consider.
If this is the case, we will provide you with suitable temporary accommodation, while we try and help you to find a more permanent solution. It is important to know that there is not a duty at this point to provide you with accommodation unless the Council considers that you have a priority need.
Whether you are vulnerable or not, if you have a local connection we will try and relieve your homelessness and we will develop Personal Housing Plan with you to decide what housing is suitable. This is what is known as the relief duty. If you do not have a local connection we may refer you to the area you do have one. The relief duty to assist you lasts for up to 56 days and can be ended sooner if you refuse an offer of accommodation which the Council decides is suitable. If you are made an offer of accommodation please think carefully before refusing this as this may discharge the authorities duty to you.