Homelessness Prevention

Housing Advice 

If you are having problems with your housing, the Council’s Housing Options Team can provide you with free and confidential advice regardless of whether you are privately renting a property, you are living in affordable housing or you own your home. You may have problems paying your rent or mortgage, issues with your neighbours or your landlord may have asked you to leave.

  

Prevention 

If you are homeless or threatened with homelessness, you should contact the Housing Options Service to make an appointment as soon as possible on 01202 451467.

You may also find some useful information in theHomeless Advice Guide|.

You will be referred to a Homeless Prevention Officer who will assess your situation and give you the most appropriate advice and assistance for your situation. The main thing to remember is to ACT EARLY, and give us as much accurate information as you can, so that we have more chance of helping you. 

Bournemouth Borough Council’s main priority will be to prevent you from becoming homeless in the first place, and help you stay in your existing home.  If this is not possible, we will try to work with you to come up with a solution and options to make sure that you have a safe place to stay, and preferably avoid the use of emergency accommodation.

 

Depending on your situation, the Homeless Prevention Team may be able to help you in the following ways:

• Look at options to keep you in your current accommodation, where it is suitable and safe to do so. They may include referring you to another service who can support you to maintain your tenancy by helping you apply for benefits.
• Refer you to other agencies in Bournemouth that will help you from becoming homeless.
• Help you to find appropriate accommodation in the private rented sector. In some circumstances we may be able to refer you to the Council’s Rent Deposit Scheme. The Scheme provides people with an interest free loan to use to pay a deposit required for a property in the private rented sector. People must meet certain criteria to be able to be referred to the Scheme.
• If your homelessness cannot be prevented, we may provide emergency accommodation to those who are homeless, but this is a limited service and only available to those in priority need. A Homeless Prevention Officer will carry out an assessment to establish whether we have a legal duty to place you into temporary emergency accommodation.
• Refer you for support services such as supported housing.
• If you are a young person and you have been asked to leave the family home, we have specialised housing officers who can help you. They will discuss the options available to you, such as supported housing, or refer you to a mediation service.
• Provide advice on employment and training opportunities through our Enhanced Housing Options Service.

The Housing Options Team is based at: 

Town Hall

        Customer Service Centre

        St Stephen’s Road

        Bournemouth

        BH2 6DY

  01202 451467