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Your duty to refer

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 puts a duty on certain public bodies to refer anyone they consider to be homeless to a local authority. This is called the duty to refer.

Services that have a duty to refer:

  • prisons, public and contracted out
  • youth offender institutions and youth offending teams
  • secure training centres, public and contracted out
  • colleges
  • probation services, community rehabilitation companies and national probation service
  • jobcentre plus
  • accident and emergency services provided in a hospital
  • urgent treatment centres, and hospitals in their capacity of providing in-patient treatment
  • social service authorities

The Secretary of State for Defence is also subject to the duty to refer for members of the regular forces.

This includes:

  • Royal Navy
  • Royal Marines
  • the regular army
  • Royal Air Force

Refer someone for homelessness advice

If you represent one of these public bodies, and you want to refer someone for homelessness advice, fill in our referral form.

spreadsheet Homelessness Prevention Team referral form (62 KB)

pdf Housing options privacy notice (164 KB)

Return your form to the email address given at the end of the form.