Mental illness and housing problems
The Housing Options Team will try to identify housing problems at the earliest opportunity through partnership and multi-agency work using the necessary support intervention needed to help prevent homelessness.
If you are a tenant of Richmondshire District Council and are threatened with homelessness, your case will be discussed with members of the Tenancy Estates Management team. We will consider a range of factors including the impact of your condition on maintaining your tenancy, whether you require additional support and whether a planned move to supported accommodation would benefit you. We work closely with colleagues in mental health services to identify people living in the private sector, or are homeless, and need assistance with housing issues.
We have a duty to assess the circumstances of your homelessness, identify what your housing and support needs are, work with you to try to prevent your homelessness or support you to find you somewhere to live.
We will provide you with a ‘personal housing plan’ that will tell you what we can do to help and what you can do to help yourself. This might include attending appointments or engaging with organisations that can assist individuals with mental illness or impairment.
For Richmondshire District Council to be legally obliged to provide you with accommodation, officers would need to be satisfied that you are eligible, homeless, and in priority need. On the basis that you are suffering from a mental illness or impairment the council may accept that you are vulnerable and therefore in ‘priority need’ for accommodation. This will be determined by your personal circumstances and will take into account information we gather from various sources, including from any medical professionals involved in your care.
We will continuously review the advice and advocacy services available to you, and develop outreach support services according to your needs. This will be done through the personal housing plan completed in partnership with you and potentially your advocate.
For further information contact our Housing Options Team on 01748 901150 or email housing.options@richmondshire.gov.uk
