Council help if you cannot afford to stay in your home

Your council must look into your housing needs if you ask them for help.

You could be homeless if your income is too low to cover:

your rent or mortgage payments
other important living costs

For example, food, heating, clothes and transport.

Use an online budget tool

Your council will want to see information about your income and spending.

These websites have budget tools or templates and are a good place to start:

Money Helper budget planner
Record your spending. Get tips on getting out of debt or starting to save.
National Debtline advice tool
Create an account. It helps you work out a budget and gives you debt solutions.
StepChange budget templates
Excel spreadsheet or PDF to download and print out. These resources are not accessible for people using screen readers.

Contact your council

You can ask for help as soon as you have serious money problems.

You do not need to have missed payments or have an eviction notice.

How to contact your council's homeless team

What is your location?

Use our letter template

Copy our template into an email to your council's homeless team:

[Use the subject: Homeless help]

I live at [address] with [names of people who live with you and children's ages].

My monthly housing costs are £xxx.

I need help because I cannot afford my housing costs and basic living costs.

I need to: [choose any that apply]

make a homeless application
get on the housing waiting list
apply for housing payments to top up my benefits
find a private tenancy with a monthly rent of less than £xxx

I can give you more information on my income and spending.

I look forward to hearing from you.

You can also send the template as an email attachment or by post:

Word template: Homeless help because of unaffordable housing (docx 17kb)
OpenDocument template: Homeless help because of unaffordable housing (odt 10kb)

Video: If you cannot afford your housing costs

Video transcript

With rising rents and interest rates, many people are really struggling to meet the costs of their housing.

You can be legally homeless and entitled to council support if your income will not cover both your rent or mortgage and other essential costs like heating, food, clothing and transport.

You can ask your council's housing options team to consider you homeless and help you find affordable housing.

A debt adviser can help you set out your income and outgoings.

Give the council as much detail as you can, including your:

rent or mortgage costs
household bills
income from work, benefits or a pension
essential childcare, transport or fuel costs

You can also tell the council if high rents in your area mean you cannot find anywhere suitable in your budget and they might offer financial help.

But bear in mind they might also suggest looking for housing in a cheaper area.

You can be legally homeless if your income will not cover both your rent or mortgage and other essential costs like heating, food, clothing or transport.