Professionals duty to refer

Make a referral

Public authorities or support services can make a referral for someone they think may be homeless or is threatened with homelessness within 56 days.  

To make a referral, you will need to:

• have the consent of the person you are referring, including that you can give us their contact details so that we can contact them
• let the person choose which housing authority they would like you to refer them to

You will also need:

• your name and contact details
• the name and contact details of the person you are referring
• to give us information about their homelessness
• to tell us if the person you are referring has support or health needs

You can refer someone to any housing authority. However, if you refer someone to us who does not have a local connection to Chelmsford, we will not be able to offer them all homeless prevention options. If the person you are referring has a connection to another area, that housing authority may have more options for helping them.

Once we have received your referral, we will contact the person you referred directly within ten working days. We will then begin an assessment of their circumstances. 

Making a referral does not guarantee that we will open a homeless application or that the person you referred will access housing. However, it does guarantee that we will give advice. This could include developing a Personal Housing Plan for the person you referred. The plan would outline the actions both we and the person you referred need to take to address their housing problem.

We can update you about your referral, if the person you referred gives us their permission. We will contact you once we have started our assessment.

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