Homelessness

Get help finding somewhere to live or support to stay in your home.

Get housing advice

Answer a few short questions to get advice about your housing situation.

How we can help

assess your housing situation
work out what your needs are
give you advice on the next steps to take.

We will help you develop a personalised housing and wellbeing plan, which sets out what actions we will both take to prevent or relieve your homelessness.

Apply for assistance if you are homeless or threatened with homelessness

If you are at risk of homelessness, you can apply for assistance through our online referral system– the Housing Assistance Referral Portal.

If you need urgent housing advice and are currently homeless, please contact our call centre on 0208 314 7007.

You may have received written or verbal notice from your landlord/ friend/ family member. If this has not already expired on the day that you call us, you will be directed to complete a self-referral form on the portal.

Step-by-step guide

Read Shelter’s step-by-step guide about how to get support from the Council if you are homeless or facing homelessness within eight weeks. The guide tells you about:

how we can help
how to ask us for help
homeless assessments
personal housing plans
who qualifies for housing
challenging a decision.

Financial support

If you are having financial problems, we may be able to help you:

budget, manage your money and maximise your income
with benefit changes, such as universal credit, benefit caps or local housing allowance
find a job
with a deposit for private rented accommodation.

Financial help will be available as part of your personalised housing and wellbeing plan.

Borrow an address to access services

We are testing a system called ProxyAddress. This gives you a stable address that you can use to access services. For example, you could use it to open a bank account.

ProxyAddress is free. It is available from October 2020 to March 2021.

Let us know if you would like to take part in this trial and we will help you join. Our contact details are at the bottom of this page.

Find out more about ProxyAddress.

Emergency accommodation

Emergency accommodation is in the form of hostels. You can access some of hostels directly without needing a referral.

Search for emergency accommodation on Homeless Link.
Call Shelter's free housing advice helpline on 0808 800 4444 to find services near you.
Purple Door provides emergency housing for young LGBTQ+ people.
If our offices are closed, call our out-of-hours number on 020 8314 7007 for emergency housing advice and assistance.

Partners and duty to refer

Some public organisations (such jobcentres, A&E and probation services) must refer homeless people, or people at risk of homelessness, to us. This is called duty to refer.

Refer someone to us.