Chapter 23: People with an offending history
Guidance on providing homelessness services to people with an offending history.
23.1 This chapter provides guidance on providing homelessness services to people with an offending history.
23.2 People with an offending history are over represented amongst single people who are homeless and sleep rough, and a lack of accommodation is likely to have a negative impact on prospects for successful resettlement and rehabilitation.
23.3 Women in contact with the Criminal Justice System often have multiple and complex needs which affect their access to suitable and sustainable accommodation on release from custody. They generally have more complicated lives, including a higher prevalence of mental health problems and experience of abuse than male offenders, meaning a multi-agency, holistic and gendered response is often required. The disruptive impact of short custodial sentences is also particularly prevalent for women, as the majority of women sentenced to custody received sentences of 6 months or less. Outcomes for women in custody can be worse than for men; women are over-represented in self-harm incidents in prison and are often held further from home, making visiting and maintaining familial ties challenging. Women are also more likely to be at risk of domestic abuse; if at risk of homelessness women may return to abusive situations or feel unsafe accessing all-gender services and accommodation. Women are also more likely to be the primary carers in a family and need accommodation for both them and their children. There may also be challenges for women leaving prison regarding the interplay between gaining the custody of their children and securing accommodation.
23.4 Foreign National Offenders’, or Foreign Nationals with Home Office interest, often have more complex situations due to awaiting decisions on their immigration status and whether deportation will apply in their case, and as a result they may not be eligible for homelessness assistance. Housing authorities will need to consider eligibility of Foreign National Offenders. For further guidance on eligibility see Chapter 7.
23.5 Housing authorities will need to work in collaboration with HM Prisons, the Probation Service, Youth Offending Services, as well as other relevant partners to prevent people leaving custody, or living in the community, from becoming homeless. The duty to refer introduced through the 2017 Act provides an impetus to develop effective referral arrangements and accommodation pathways that involve all relevant agencies to provide appropriate jointly planned help and support to prevent homelessness.
23.6 Housing authorities should work closely with Youth Offending Services and children’s social care services to ensure joint and advanced planning around the needs of young people leaving custody. Particular care should be taken to ensure that young people aged 16-17 and care leavers aged 18-24 do not leave custody without an accommodation plan in place. This will also require cooperation between housing authorities and children’s social care services in advance of release.
23.7 Housing authorities and offender management services (i.e. prisons, youth offending services and probation providers) should work together to ensure the accommodation needs of people leaving custody and those serving their sentence in the community are met. Probation providers have a responsibility to support people under their supervision to reduce reoffending. The Probation Service, including through their contracted service providers, must provide support to help people find accommodation. Housing authorities should continue to work with probation providers, their contracted service providers, as well as prisons and voluntary sector organisations, to ensure their clients access suitable accommodation. Housing authorities are encouraged to proactively build relationships with agencies to this effect.
-
23.8 The following criminal justice services are subject to the duty to refer, meaning they are required to refer service users in England they consider may be homeless or threatened with homelessness within 56 days to a local housing authority, with the service user’s consent:
-
(a) prisons (public and private);
-
(b) young offender institutions;
-
(c) secure training centres;
-
(d) secure colleges;
-
(e) youth offending teams; and,
-
(f) Probation Services.
-
For further guidance on duty to refer see Chapter 4.
Advice and information
23.9 People with an offending history generally face additional barriers in accessing housing, and therefore will need targeted advice and information to help them to secure accommodation.
23.10 Section 179(2)(a) of the 1996 Act requires authorities to provide information and advice which is designed to meet the needs of people released from prison or youth detention. Advice and information to people with an offending history may be delivered via the housing authority’s website, social media, through leaflets or through dedicated advice services, and will be most effective if developed in consultation or jointly with offender management services in the district (i.e. prisons, youth offending services and probation providers). Housing authorities may also wish to consult with prisoners or people with an offending history before developing resources tailored to their particular needs.
-
23.11 Advice and information should reflect local circumstances and arrangements but might include:
-
(a) the support available to people going in to custody which will enable them to retain a tenancy or license, or to surrender it so that rent arrears do not accrue;
-
(b) housing benefit or universal credit entitlement for people in custody;
-
(c) tenancy rights and how to protect a tenancy where it is appropriate to do so;
-
(d) housing options for people leaving custody, including access to the social housing register, supported housing and help available to secure private rented accommodation; and,
-
(e) support services for people with an offending history that might help them to secure and/or to sustain accommodation on release.
-
23.12 It is recommended that housing advice be made available to people whilst in custody, and that housing authorities collaborate with prisons from which offenders are released to their districts, together with probation providers, to provide accessible advice on housing options available to them. For further guidance on providing advice and information see Chapter 3.
Prevention
23.13 Housing authorities should put in place arrangements that will help to prevent people with an offending history from becoming homeless. Policies and partnerships designed to reduce homelessness might include, but not be limited to, the areas set out in 23.12 to 23.15 below.
Preventing loss of accommodation due to offending behaviour:
23.14 Tenants may be at risk of becoming homeless because of their own or others’ anti-social or offending behaviour. Housing authorities should ensure that their housing management procedures include early contact with a tenant who they believe may be responsible for behaviour that could result in their becoming homeless, and that private landlords and private registered providers are encouraged to alert them where tenants are threatened with eviction. Where offender management services continue to be involved with the person they should be alerted of any risk of homelessness, so that joint plans may be put in place to try and prevent homelessness and provide additional support where appropriate.
23.15 Sometimes people with an offending history, and their families, become homeless because it is no longer safe for them to remain in their tenancy. Young people, who become involved in gang related activity, whether as victims or perpetrators, sometimes face particular risks. Housing authorities should work with police, offender managers and specialist services to coordinate activity to minimise risk and prevent homelessness. This will also help reduce re-offending and promote community safety.
Preventing loss of accommodation whilst a person is in custody:
23.16 Prison services and probation providers carry out assessments to identify resettlement needs, including the need for accommodation, at the start of a prisoner’s period in custody. Sentence planning arrangements require plans for resettlement to be reviewed throughout the sentence and appropriate support arranged to meet a person’s needs on leaving custody.
23.17 Assessing an offender’s housing needs at the start of a period in custody will help to identify if assistance is required to end, sustain or transfer an existing tenancy, access welfare support to meet rent costs while in prison, or close down an existing tenancy appropriately. Housing authorities are advised to assist the Prison service and probation providers in providing advice to prisoners and taking action to ensure they can sustain or surrender their accommodation while in custody.
Preventing homelessness on leaving custody:
23.18 If a prisoner is assessed as requiring assistance with accommodation on release, there will usually be sufficient time to consider their options and take action to try and prevent their homelessness. In most cases, but particularly with young people, contact should be made with family to try and support a return home (where safe to do so) if only on a temporary basis. Where a person preparing to leave custody cannot return to family or another safe address, housing authorities should work with the applicant and liaise with offender manager and support services to agree and to deliver reasonable steps to prevent them from becoming homeless on release.
Assessing priority need
23.19 Housing authorities have a duty to help secure accommodation for any applicant threatened with homelessness on leaving custody, irrespective of priority need. For further guidance on prevention duty see Chapter 12, for further guidance on the relief duty see Chapter 13 and for further guidance on assessments and plans see Chapter 11.
23.20 Where activity to prevent or relieve homelessness is unsuccessful the authority will need to assess whether the person has a priority need for accommodation and is owed the main housing duty. For further guidance on priority need see Chapter 8 and for further guidance on accommodation duties see Chapter 15. A person who is vulnerable as a result of having served a custodial sentence, been committed for contempt of court or remanded in custody has a priority need for accommodation.
-
23.21 Assessments of vulnerability should be composite, taking into account all relevant factors that might contribute to a person being significantly more vulnerable if homeless than an ordinary person would be if homeless. In determining whether applicants who fall within this category are vulnerable as a result of their period in custody a housing authority will need to take into account all of the relevant factors including:
-
(a) the length of time the applicant served in custody or detention (although authorities should not assume that vulnerability could not occur as a result of a short period in custody or detention);
-
(b) whether the applicant is receiving supervision from a criminal justice agency e.g. the Probation Service or youth offending team. Housing authorities should have regard to any advice from criminal justice agency staff regarding their view of the applicant’s general vulnerability, but the final decision on the question of vulnerability for the purposes of the homelessness legislation will rest with the housing authority;
-
(c) the length of time since the applicant was released from custody or detention, and the extent to which the applicant has been able to obtain and/or maintain accommodation during that time;
-
(d) whether the applicant has any existing support networks and how much of a positive influence these networks are likely to be in the applicant’s life.
-
23.22 Housing authorities should take into account the assessments of housing and support needs completed by offender management services, or voluntary organisations acting on behalf of these agencies.
Intentional homelessness
-
23.23 People with an offending history may apply for homelessness assistance after losing their accommodation due to a period in custody. In considering whether such an applicant is homeless intentionally the housing authority will have to decide whether:
-
(a) there was a likelihood that ceasing to occupy the accommodation could reasonably have been regarded at the time as a likely consequence of committing the offence; and,
-
(b) the accommodation would have otherwise continued to be available to the person at the point in time when they applied for homelessness assistance.
-
23.24 Housing authorities must consider each application on a case by case basis, in the light of all the facts and circumstances, including the age and maturity of the applicant, and should discuss the matter with the Probation Service. Authorities should not adopt a blanket policy which assumes that people who have lost accommodation whilst in custody will or will not be assessed as intentionally homeless.
Local connection
23.25 Housing authorities may receive applications from people leaving custody who do not have a local connection to their district but do have a connection to another local authority area. For further guidance on local connection see Chapter 10. If the applicant is eligible for assistance and threatened with homelessness the housing authority taking the application will have a section 195 prevention duty, whether or not the applicant has a local connection. Detention in prison (whether convicted or not) does not establish residency of choice in the district the prison is in, and so will not create a local connection with that district.
23.26 However, if the applicant is homeless the receiving authority may, if it is satisfied that the conditions are met, make a referral to another district where the applicant has a local connection. If the notified authority accepts that the conditions for referral are met they will take on the section 189B relief duty, as well as a duty to provide accommodation if there is reason to believe the applicant may be in priority need.
23.27 In considering whether or not a referral should be made, the authority that has taken the application should consider the particular circumstances of the applicant, and any risks involved in referring them to another local authority area. An applicant cannot be referred to another area where they would be at risk of violence. The authority will also want to take into account the considerations identified in paragraphs 23.28 and 23.29 below where relevant, before making a final decision.
Suitability of accommodation
23.28 Section 208(1) requires housing authorities to secure accommodation within their district, in so far as is reasonably practicable. There may be circumstances in which there are clear benefits for the applicant of being accommodated outside of the district. This could occur where upon the advice of the Probation Service or through Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) it is decided that a person with an offending history should be placed outside the district to reduce risk of reoffending, or to help break links with previous contacts who could exert a negative influence.
23.29 There may also be instances where a criminal justice agency or MAPPA advise that in order to ensure appropriate distance between the applicant and their victims, the applicant should reside in a particular area, where they do not have a local connection.
23.30 When assessing the accommodation needs of a person with an offending history an authority will need to take into account their support needs, which in some cases might be complex. Young people leaving custody are likely to require accommodation with some level of support if they are to maintain their tenancy or license and avoid reoffending.
Accessing accommodation
23.31 People with an offending history face barriers to accessing accommodation across tenures. Housing authorities providing help to secure or securing accommodation should be aware of the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (as amended by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012). The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 sets out timescales for when convictions become spent, after which it is unlawful for social and private landlords to take spent convictions into account when determining whether the person is suitable for housing.