What to do if you are homeless tonight

Start with the council for the area you are in right now. GOV.UK has a postcode lookup that routes you to the right authority's homelessness service, and during office hours you can present in person at the housing options office without an appointment. There is no application form to complete and no prescribed wording — the statutory Code of Guidance is explicit that an application requires no particular form, can be made orally, can be made to any department of the authority, and can be made by someone acting for you.

Outside office hours, use the emergency number rather than waiting for the morning. The Code of Guidance requires housing authorities to have arrangements in place for 24-hour emergency cover, for example by enabling telephone access to an appropriate duty officer, and to publicise how to reach it. On most council websites the number is on the homelessness page or the contact page; on many main switchboards the after-hours answerphone message reads it out. If the website is unhelpful, ring the main council number and listen to the recorded options.

Say the three things that trigger the duty, in plain terms: that you are homeless, that you have nowhere to sleep tonight, and that you are asking the council to provide interim accommodation while it makes its inquiries. If any of the priority need categories apply to you — you are pregnant, you have children with you, you are 16 or 17, you have left home because of abuse or violence, you have a physical or mental health condition — say so in the first minute rather than waiting to be asked. The duty is engaged by what the officer has reason to believe, so what you tell them matters immediately.

If you are in danger tonight, that is a 999 call, not a housing call. Nobody is required to return to accommodation where they face domestic abuse or violence, and being unable to stay somewhere safely is itself a form of homelessness under the statutory definition — accommodation only counts if it would be reasonable for you to continue to occupy it, and the Code of Guidance treats a risk of domestic abuse or other violence as making occupation unreasonable.

Take documents if you have them to hand: photo identity, your National Insurance number, benefit award letters, any notice or court papers from a landlord, medical letters or a repeat prescription list, and details of everyone who lives with you. Do not delay presenting in order to collect them. Missing paperwork is a reason for the council to make inquiries; it is not a lawful reason to leave you outside overnight.

If you physically cannot get to the office — you are out of the district, unwell, or have no transport — ask someone to make the application on your behalf, or make it by telephone, and ask the officer to log it, give you a reference and confirm it in writing or by text. Note the officer's name and the time of the call. That record is what makes a later challenge possible.

If you end up on the street despite all of this, the council application still stands and should be pursued the next working day. Crisis, which runs Skylight services in nine locations across Great Britain, points people who are sleeping rough to StreetLink for an outreach referral in England and Wales, to Shelter's free emergency helpline on 0808 800 4444, and to Centrepoint on 0808 800 0661 for people aged 16 to 25.

Section 188(1) of the Housing Act 1996 is the provision that gets a bed tonight in England: where the authority has reason to believe an applicant may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need, it must secure that accommodation is available for that applicant's occupation. The Code of Guidance describes four circumstances in which an authority must secure accommodation on an interim basis, and this is the first and by far the most commonly used of them.

Two features of the section are worth memorising because they defeat the two most common refusals. First, the duty is engaged by belief rather than by proof, and by possibility rather than by certainty — the statutory language is 'may be'. Second, section 188(2) provides that the duty arises irrespective of any possibility of the applicant's case being referred to another local housing authority. In other words, 'you have no connection with this borough' is a question for the referral process later in the week, not a reason to decline to house you tonight.

GOV.UK also lists groups who do not need a local connection with the area at all: current and former members of the UK armed forces, bereaved spouses and civil partners leaving Ministry of Defence accommodation, current and former reservists with a service-related injury, care leavers under 25, and survivors of domestic abuse. If you fall into any of those, say so at the counter.

What the duty requires is accommodation — not advice, not a printed list of hostels, and not a promise of a call back. The council may discharge it through its own stock, a hostel place, a bed and breakfast or a hotel, and it may place you outside its own district where that is unavoidable, but the obligation is to secure somewhere for you to be.

The interim duty does not run indefinitely. Section 188(1ZA) and (1ZB) set out when it ends, which turns on the notifications the council gives you and on whether the separate relief duty is still running. The Code of Guidance confirms that a housing authority ending interim accommodation need only give reasonable notice to vacate rather than obtain a possession order, but that as a public body it must act reasonably — giving you at least some opportunity to find somewhere else and time to consider requesting a review.

Running alongside section 188 is the relief duty in section 189B, inserted by the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. That duty is owed to everyone who is homeless and eligible, whether or not they have a priority need, and requires the authority to take reasonable steps to help secure accommodation with a reasonable prospect of being available for at least six months. For applicants with priority need who are not intentionally homeless, it runs for 56 days. The two duties do different jobs: section 189B is about helping you secure somewhere, section 188 is about where you sleep meanwhile. Do not accept the first as a substitute for the second.

Section 188(3) also gives the authority a power — not a duty — to continue accommodating you while a review of a decision is pending, and the Code of Guidance says the factors to weigh include the merits of your case and your personal circumstances. Asking explicitly for that power to be exercised, in writing, is a step most applicants never take.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the interim duty depends on priority need. The Code of Guidance sets out the categories: a pregnant person and anyone residing with them; a person with dependent children; a victim of domestic abuse; a person vulnerable through old age, mental illness, learning disability, physical disability or other special reason; 16 and 17 year olds outside children's services care; care leavers under 21 who were looked after between 16 and 18; people aged 21 and over who are vulnerable as a result of having been looked after or fostered; former members of the armed forces; people vulnerable following a custodial sentence or detention; people who have left accommodation because of violence or threats of violence; and people homeless as a result of an emergency such as a flood, fire or other disaster.

Most disputes are about the vulnerability category. The test the authority applies is whether you would be significantly more vulnerable than an ordinary person would be if that ordinary person became homeless. The Code frames this as whether you would suffer harm that makes a noticeable difference to your ability to deal with the consequences of homelessness. It is a comparative test, and the comparison is with an ordinary person facing the street, not with a person in good housing.

Two features of the assessment work in an applicant's favour and are routinely under-used. Authorities must carry out an individual assessment rather than applying blanket policies, and where they rely on support being available from a third party, they must satisfy themselves that the support will actually be provided consistently — a relative who says they will 'keep an eye out' is not, on the Code's own terms, a substitute for accommodation. The Equality Act 2010 duties also apply where a protected characteristic is in play.

Tonight, though, the question is not whether you are in priority need. It is whether the officer has reason to believe you may be. That is a much smaller evidential ask, and it is satisfied by a credible account rather than by a completed medical assessment. A repeat prescription, a hospital discharge letter, a mental health team's contact card, a maternity notes booklet, a care leaver's pathway plan, a police incident number, a probation officer's details — any one of these, produced at the counter, makes the belief threshold very hard to argue against.

If you have children with you, or you are pregnant, the category is not a matter of judgement at all and there is no vulnerability assessment to fail. Say it first and say it clearly. The same applies to a 16 or 17 year old presenting alone, where children's services and the housing authority both have duties and the Code prohibits the use of bed and breakfast accommodation entirely.

If the council concludes you have no priority need, that does not end its obligations. The relief duty under section 189B is owed to every eligible homeless applicant regardless of priority need, so the authority must still take reasonable steps to help you secure accommodation and must still assess your case and agree a personalised housing plan with you. What you lose is the guarantee of somewhere to sleep while that happens — which is exactly why the priority need decision is the one worth challenging. Scotland, as the section below explains, abolished the test outright.

The Code of Guidance requires housing authorities to notify applicants in writing of their decisions, to write those notifications clearly and in plain language, and to explain the reasons — particularly where the decision goes against the applicant. It also confirms that the duty to make inquiries is triggered where the authority has reason to believe a person applying for assistance may be homeless or threatened with homelessness, which is a deliberately low bar designed to capture potential cases rather than to filter them out.

The problem is that the decision that actually determines where you sleep is very often never written down. It is delivered verbally at a counter or on a phone line: we cannot help you, you need an appointment, you are not from this borough, come back with your paperwork. A verbal refusal of this kind is not a lawful decision on your application, it carries no reasons, and it gives you nothing to challenge. Converting it into a written decision is the single highest-value thing you can do in the building.

The wording that does it is short. Ask: are you refusing to accept my homeless application? Then: please give me a written decision with your reasons and details of my review rights. Officers who were about to send you away informally will frequently escalate the matter to a manager at that point, because a written refusal has to be defensible and an informal one does not.

Keep your own record in parallel. Note the date and time, the office or phone line, the name and role of everyone you spoke to, and what was said. Save texts and emails, and photograph any leaflet or handwritten note you are given. If you were told to return the next day, write down the exact words used. None of this is theatre — it is the evidence base for a review, a complaint to the ombudsman or an urgent application to court.

Ask for the reference number for your application and for the name of the officer dealing with it, and confirm the conversation by email the same evening if you can. A short email that records what you said, what you were told and what you are asking for turns a disputed recollection into a document with a timestamp.

You will normally be warned about the offence of giving false information and about your duty to report material changes in your circumstances. The Code says that warning should be conveyed sensitively so as not to intimidate applicants. Take it seriously in the sense that everything you say should be accurate — but do not let it deter you from describing your circumstances fully, including health conditions or experiences of abuse you would rather not discuss.

If English is not your first language, or if a disability makes the process harder, say so at the outset. The Code expects authorities to publicise their contact arrangements and to make translation available, and reasonable adjustments are not a favour to be requested apologetically.

Section 202 of the Housing Act 1996 gives a right to request a review of the decisions that matter most: whether you are eligible for assistance, what duty if any is owed to you, the steps the authority is taking under the prevention and relief duties, a decision to refer your case to another authority, and the suitability of accommodation offered to you. A request must be made within 21 days beginning with the day you are notified of the decision, although the authority may allow a longer period in writing. There is no right to review the outcome of an earlier review.

The review timescales are set out in the Code of Guidance: eight weeks for most decisions, three weeks for decisions about the prevention and relief duties, and up to twelve weeks where a referral is being decided jointly by an appointed person. Where the reviewing officer identifies a deficiency in the original decision but is still minded to decide against you, they must tell you so and give you the chance to make further written or oral representations within a reasonable period. That 'minded-to' letter is an opportunity, not a formality — it tells you precisely what the reviewer thinks is wrong with your case.

Note what section 202 does not cover. A refusal to provide interim accommodation under section 188 is not on the list of reviewable decisions, so there is no statutory review of the decision that determines where you sleep tonight. That is why an emergency refusal is a matter for urgent specialist advice rather than for the review process — and why getting the refusal into writing, quickly, matters so much.

After a review, section 204 allows an appeal to the county court on any point of law arising from the decision, brought within 21 days of being notified of the review decision, with the court able to extend that period where there was good reason for delay. The court may confirm, quash or vary the decision. Section 204(4) allows accommodation to continue during the appeal period and while an appeal is pending where the authority was under a duty to secure it.

Alongside all of this, the authority has a discretionary power under section 188(3) to keep accommodating you while a review is decided. Ask for it in the same letter that requests the review, and give reasons: the strength of your case, the consequences of rough sleeping for your health or your children, and any new evidence you are obtaining. The Code confirms the merits of the case and personal circumstances are relevant factors.

Get free advice in parallel rather than afterwards. Shelter's free helpline on 0808 800 4444 covers housing law in England and is open Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm — which is a weekday daytime service, so it is not the route at nine on a Saturday night. Shelter Scotland, Shelter Cymru, Housing Rights in Northern Ireland and Citizens Advice all run equivalent services for their jurisdictions, and homelessness is one of the areas where legal aid remains available in England and Wales.

If the objection is about how the council behaved rather than about the legal decision — records lost, no decision issued at all, an application never logged, unreasonable delay — that is a complaint through the council's own procedure and then to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in England, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman or the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman. That route is slow and cannot house you tonight, but it produces findings that change how authorities behave.

Scotland runs a separate statute and a materially stronger scheme. Section 29 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 provides that where a local authority has reason to believe that an applicant may be homeless, it must secure that accommodation is made available for their occupation pending its inquiries. The trigger is homelessness itself — the English requirement of a reason to believe there may also be a priority need does not appear in the same way, and the duty applies regardless of whether the applicant has a local connection with another authority's district.

That difference is not accidental. The Scottish Government confirms that the priority need test was abolished in 2012, so that anyone found to be unintentionally homeless became entitled to settled accommodation from a local authority, a housing association or the private rented sector. In practice this makes a Scottish homelessness application a stronger route into settled housing than the equivalent English one, and it removes the vulnerability argument that dominates English casework.

Scotland also regulates what temporary accommodation may be used. The Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order 2014 sets standards for temporary accommodation, and the Scottish Government states that a 2020 amendment extended the ban on placing homeless households in bed and breakfast or hotel accommodation for more than seven days from pregnant women and families with children to all homeless households. That is a considerably tighter limit than the six-week ceiling that applies to families in England.

Section 31 of the 1987 Act sets out what is owed once inquiries conclude: where the applicant is homeless and did not become homeless intentionally, the authority must secure that permanent accommodation becomes available, and otherwise must provide temporary accommodation together with advice and assistance in securing somewhere permanent. Section 32B requires the authority to assess whether the household needs prescribed housing support services and to ensure those services are provided.

Policy is moving further in the same direction. The Scottish Government describes a shift to rapid rehousing by default and to ending the use of night shelters, backed by substantial investment in changing the homelessness system, and treats prevention as the primary objective rather than a supplement to crisis response.

Practically, apply to the homelessness team of whichever of Scotland's 32 councils you are in. mygov.scot links to every council's housing department and points people to Shelter Scotland's helpline on 0808 800 4444, open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm, to Simon Community Scotland's 24-hour helpline, and to Citizens Advice Scotland. The 24-hour service matters for the same reason it does everywhere else: the weekday helplines close, and homelessness does not.

Wales rewrote its homelessness law in Part 2 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, and the architecture is prevention-first. Section 60 requires authorities to provide information and advice on preventing homelessness free of charge. Section 62 requires an assessment where someone appears to be homeless or threatened with homelessness, and section 63 requires the authority to notify the outcome of that assessment and to tell the applicant about the right to request a review.

The duties then run in sequence. Section 66 is the prevention duty, owed to eligible applicants threatened with homelessness and lasting up to 56 days from notification. Section 73 is the duty to help secure suitable accommodation for eligible applicants who are already homeless, also framed around a 56-day period. Section 75 imposes the longer-term duty to secure accommodation once the section 73 duty ends, for eligible applicants in priority need who did not become homeless intentionally.

The provision that gets a bed tonight in Wales is section 68: the authority must secure interim accommodation where it has reason to believe the applicant may be homeless, eligible and in priority need. Section 70 sets out the Welsh priority need categories, which include pregnant women, people with dependent children, vulnerable people, young people aged 16 to 21, care leavers, veterans and people experiencing domestic abuse. The wording of the trigger mirrors the English one, so the same approach applies: name the duty, state why you may be in priority need, and ask for a written decision.

Shelter Cymru is the specialist advice service for Wales and runs a telephone advice line as well as written guidance covering emergency options, rough sleeping, help from social services, and the position of asylum seekers and EU and EEA nationals. Its own summary of the law is that councils have legal duties to help people who are homeless or in danger of losing their home, that in most cases the council must provide advice, and that it may have to help you find a home.

Northern Ireland does not use councils for this at all. Homelessness is handled by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, which nidirect describes as required to provide free homelessness advice to everyone and to interview applicants to discuss their housing options. nidirect is also clear that legal homelessness is much wider than sleeping rough: it includes having somewhere to live that you cannot stay in because of the threat of violence, abuse or harassment, accommodation in a condition that risks your health, a lack of suitable housing for your family, and being locked out and denied access.

The two numbers to have are the Housing Executive on 0344 8920 900 during office hours and its out-of-hours emergency homelessness line on 0344 8920 908, both published by Housing Rights, the independent housing advice charity for Northern Ireland. Housing Rights explains that the Housing Executive will prioritise finding accommodation for applicants who have homeless points or meet priority criteria such as having dependent children, that temporary accommodation is typically a hostel place, with single lets — private rented properties — available for families or households with particular needs, and that bed and breakfast can be used in emergencies.

Housing Rights also lists first-come, first-served emergency beds in Belfast, including Centenary House on 028 9032 0320, Morning Star House on 028 9033 3500, the Simon Community on 0800 171 2222 and the Welcome Organisation for women on 028 9024 0424, and points people under 25 towards foyer accommodation in Belfast, Derry/Londonderry and Omagh, which combines housing with training and support.

Emergency accommodation is rarely pleasant and is not meant to be permanent. In practice it is a room in a hostel, a bed and breakfast, or a hotel, and it may be outside the district you presented in. Shelter's guidance is blunt about the arithmetic: do not refuse it, because the council might not offer you anywhere else, and accepting it keeps you off the street while the authority investigates your case. The bar for challenging a placement as unsuitable is high — it has to be very unsuitable to be successfully challenged in court — though genuine safety concerns are a different matter and should be raised immediately and in writing.

There are real standards, and they are worth knowing. The Code of Guidance requires accommodation secured under the homelessness duties to be free of category 1 hazards under the Housing Act 2004, to comply with overcrowding provisions, and to be assessed against each household's own needs. Inspections should check for damp, mould and electrical safety, and for families with infants there must be adequate space for a cot for each child aged under two.

Bed and breakfast is restricted rather than banned in England. The Code says authorities should use it only as a last resort and then for a maximum of six weeks for applicants with family commitments — pregnant applicants and those with dependent children — and that this applies regardless of whether breakfast is actually served, provided cooking facilities or other key amenities are shared between households. B&B is prohibited outright for 16 and 17 year old applicants.

Placements out of the district are also constrained. The Code requires authorities to secure accommodation within their own area so far as reasonably practicable, and where that is not possible, to weigh the distance involved and the disruption to schooling, employment, medical care and caring responsibilities. Authorities should document those decisions and give applicants reasonable time to consider them. If you are placed far away and the placement breaks a child's schooling or your job, say so in writing at once — suitability is a reviewable decision under section 202.

While you are in interim accommodation, the relief duty is doing the other half of the work. The authority must assess your case, agree a personalised housing plan recording the steps both you and the authority will take, and take reasonable steps to help you secure accommodation with a reasonable prospect of being available for at least six months. The Code is explicit that authorities must not limit or reduce the help they give during the relief duty on the basis of an assumption about whether you will ultimately be owed a longer-term duty.

The decision that then decides your longer-term position is usually intentionality. Someone is intentionally homeless only where all three limbs are made out: they deliberately did or failed to do something, that caused them to stop occupying accommodation, and it would have been reasonable for them to continue occupying it. The Code says an act or omission made in good faith by someone unaware of a relevant fact must not be treated as deliberate, and specifically that arrears arising from financial difficulties beyond the applicant's control, from Housing Benefit or Universal Credit delays, or from mental illness, disability or age-related incapacity, should not be treated as intentional. Economic abuse must be taken into account for survivors of domestic abuse. Each household member is assessed individually.

Two practical points close the loop. Cooperate visibly with the personalised housing plan, because deliberate and unreasonable refusal to cooperate is a route by which the authority can bring duties to an end. And deal with the money side in parallel — the housing element of Universal Credit, a Discretionary Housing Payment, the household support available through your council and a free debt adviser will all matter within days of the first night's accommodation being secured.