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What to do if you’re worried about being homeless

If you are homeless, or worried about becoming homeless, you should contact us as soon as you can. The earlier you contact us, the more we can do to help.

If you need our help, contact our homeless prevention team or complete the contact form on the Housing Jigsaw website, and we’ll get in touch with you.

If you become homeless after 6pm on a weekday or anytime over a weekend or bank holiday, you can call our emergency duty team on 01454 615 165.

If you need a translator please let us know and we will arrange one.

Homeless prevention team

Town Hall, Walliscote Grove Road, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 1UJ

How we can help

We always want to prevent you becoming homeless in the first place. We can help you by:

  • negotiating with your landlord/excluder
  • giving you advice if you are having problems paying your rent
  • helping if your landlord tries to illegally evict you
  • referring you for supported housing if you are a young person who needs to leave home

Who we can help

We have a legal duty to give help and advice to all households that are homeless or threatened with homelessness within 56 days.

If you are homeless, we will carry out a housing assessment to check if we have a legal duty to find you accommodation. 

When you contact us

If you’ve been threatened with homelessness within the next 56 days or you are already homeless you will be interviewed by someone in our homelessness prevention team.

We’ll carry out an assessment with you of your housing and support needs and the circumstances that led to you becoming homeless or at risk of homelessness.

We’ll use this assessment to develop a personalised housing plan which will set out steps that you, along with our help, can take to try and resolve your housing issue.

Housing options

Our priority is to stop you from losing your current accommodation.

If this is not possible, and our assessment shows we have a duty to help you, we will help you find somewhere else to live.

Private rented housing

We usually help by finding alternative private rented housing. We work with private landlords to try and find a home for you. We may be able to offer you a deposit bond, for the landlord, if you would struggle to pay a cash deposit. Find out more about private renting.

Supported housing

If you are a young person or you are considered to be vulnerable, a referral can be made to one of the supported housing schemes in North Somerset.

HomeChoice North Somerset

You can use the HomeChoice website to join the housing register and bid on social housing. However, there is a long wait for social housing so if you need somewhere to live quickly you should look at other options such a private renting.

Temporary and emergency accommodation

We might be able to provide emergency accommodation if you are homeless, but this is limited and is dependent on your circumstances and eligibility. A homeless prevention officer will make a decision based on your situation.

Specific housing advice

We’ve put some advice together for specific groups of people.

Care leavers

If you’re leaving care and are worried about your housing options, read our advice for care leavers.

Victims of domestic abuse

If you are homeless because of domestic abuse, and a crime is happening now, or you are in immediate danger, call 999.

If you're a victim of domestic abuse and need to leave home now, you can:

  • try first to ask friends or family if you can stay with them and figure out what to do next
  • call us on 01934 426330 between 9:00am and 5:00pm Monday to Friday 
  • call Next Link if you're a woman affected by abuse and violence and need to move to safe accommodation
  • check our Community Safety page for information about what support may be available

See our help pack on this page for advice if you need to move because of violence or threats of violence.

People being discharged from hospital

If you’re being discharged from hospital and are worried about your housing options, read our advice for people being discharged from hospital.

People who are LGBT+ and experiencing hate crime

If you are considering your housing options because of homophobic, biphobic or transphobic hate crime, read our advice for LGBT+ people.

People who are homeless and have mental health issues

If you or someone you know has a mental health issue and nowhere to live, read our housing advice for homeless people with mental health issues.

Prisoners

If you are in prison and are worried about your home, read our housing advice for prisoners.

Veterans

If you are a former member of the regular armed forces, read our housing advice for veterans.

Refugees

If you are a refugee with nowhere to live or at risk of losing your home, our transition guide has advice that can help.