Community support
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Homelessness support teams
Information about the 3 teams that work together to assess and meet housing need wherever they can.
The housing options unit is made up of 3 teams: homelessness prevention and advice team, private rented sector and temporary accommodation team and social and supported housing team.
To contact the housing options unit please email housingoptions@elmbridge.gov.uk or call us on 01372 474590.
For emergency homelessness outside of office hours, call 0300 123 7718 and our out of hours service will help.
If you are sleeping rough, or know of someone who is sleeping rough, contact Elmbridge Rentstart Rough Sleeper Outreach on 01372 477167, or email enquiries@elmbridgerentstart.org.uk.
Homelessness prevention and advice team
This team has prevention duties for those who are threatened with homelessness within 56 days.
The team works to prevent homelessness wherever possible and where it can’t be prevented they will assess the relief duties for applicants in line with homelessness legislation.
The team will issue personal housing plans (PHP) and provide advice on housing options for applicants who are homeless or threatened with homelessness and will decide if temporary accommodation needs to be provided. If so, the team will decide what would be suitable accommodation for applicants based on their individual assessment. The team also gives general housing advice.
Private rented sector and temporary accommodation team
This team operates the council’s Rental Support Scheme to secure accommodation in the private rented sector for applicants referred by the homelessness prevention and advice team.
They visit bed and breakfast and nightly paid accommodation and work to make the best use of all temporary accommodation available, working to helping people to move on from it depending on the duty owed to applicants under homelessness legislation.
Social and supported housing team
This team assesses applicant’s eligibility to join the council’s Housing Register, verifies applications, assesses their priority under the council’s Allocations Policy and nominates applicants for accommodation advertised through Search Moves, the council’s choice based lettings scheme.