Leaving custody

This page looks at the law where a young person will be homeless on leaving custody or secure accommodation, and how advisers can help them.

What the law says

Can a young person leaving custody make a homelessness application?

Councils have a duty to take a homelessness application from any person where they have reason to believe that they may be homeless or threatened with homelessness within 28 days.

Where young people are leaving custody, there are two things to note about this duty.

• An application should be taken before release from custody if the young person, or someone on their behalf, contacts the council within the 28 days before their release.
• The council that is approached must take an application. It need not be the council in the area in which they were in custody, or the area where they lived before their incarceration.

See the page on homelessness applications for more details on applying as homeless.

It can sometimes be difficult to get the local authority to accept an application from a young person leaving custody; see the page on gatekeeping for more on information on how to challenge this.

Will a young person leaving custody get accommodation?

The council will have a duty to provide interim accommodation duty where there is reason to believe that the young person:

• may be homeless (or threatened with homelessness),
• eligible for assistance, and
• have a priority need,

Most 16- and 17-year-olds will have a priority need. See the pages on emergencies, homelessness applications, and priority need for more information.

What if the young person leaving custody is over 18?

Young people who are 18 or over do not automatically have a priority need (unless they have children or are pregnant); they will have to be considered vulnerable.

There is a special category of people who may be vulnerable as a result of having:

• been in custody
• been committed for contempt of court
• been on remand.

A person will not automatically be considered vulnerable in these circumstances; they will have to pass the normal test for vulnerability (see the page on priority need for more information). However, when deciding if a young person leaving custody is vulnerable, the council should take account of:

• the length of the sentence (although a short sentence does not automatically mean that someone is not vulnerable)
• whether there is any supervision from a criminal justice agency (for example, a Youth Offending Team) and, if so, the opinion of the young person's supervising officer as to their vulnerability
• if they left custody before applying as homeless , whether they have been able to find and maintain any accommodation since leaving
• if they have existing support networks (for example, family or friends), and whether these support networks are likely to be a positive influence.

If a housing needs assessment has been conducted by a criminal justice agency, and this identifies that the young person may have difficulty accessing housing or be particularly vulnerable, this should be made available to the council.

Could a young person leaving custody be intentionally homeless?

There may often be problems with intentional homelessness where a young person has been in custody. The page on intentional homelessness gives more details about this. Councils should not have a blanket policy of finding people who have been in custody to be intentionally homeless. They should establish a genuine causal link between the offence and imprisonment and homelessness, and establish that the loss of accommodation could have reasonably been foreseen by the young person as a likely consequence of their actions.

How can I help?

Be prepared

Early intervention is essential if the young person is to avoid a period of homelessness when leaving custody. A young person who is approaching the end of a term of imprisonment should be advised upon all the options available, including returning to the parental home, especially if it is unlikely that the council will have an interim accommodation duty.

Inform the council

If the young person will be making a homelessness application, you should inform the council of the threat of homelessness as soon as possible, so that any problems can be resolved and interim accommodation arranged prior to release. Any pertinent information about their offence and sentence should be made available to the council.

Arrange a multi-agency meeting

You may want to arrange a multi-agency meeting, involving any criminal justice workers, the council, and any other relevant people or agencies, to discuss the young person's housing needs prior to release.

Request a review

Where a negative decision has been made on a homelessness application, you can help them with a review of the decision (see the page on homelessness reviews for more information). Review submissions can be based on the information above and the information in the Priority need or Intentional homelessness pages.