Summary: The Council was at fault for delay providing Mr X with interim accommodation, meaning he slept rough for nine days. The Council was also at fault for delay accepting the main housing duty, poor communication, failing to make reasonable adjustments and delays in complaint handling. These faults caused Mr X distress. The Council failed to provide suitable temporary accommodation despite accepting Mr X’s current accommodation is unsuitable. As a result, he remains living in a hotel which does not meet his needs. To remedy the injustice to Mr X, the Council has agreed to apologise, seek alternative accommodation and make payments to Mr X.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s handling of his homelessness. In particular, he says the Council:
1. failed to provide interim accommodation despite knowing he was homeless and Disabled;
2. delayed dealing with his case, including referring him to the right team;
3. provided unsuitable accommodation in a hotel which did not meet his needs;
4. communicated poorly, including failing to make reasonable adjustments; and
5. took too long to respond to his complaint.
2. As a result, Mr X says he had to sleep rough for nine days and experienced significant distress and risk to his physical and mental health.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the complaint and the information Mr X provided.
7. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered its response along with relevant law and guidance.
8. I referred to the Ombudsman's Guidance on Remedies, a copy of which can be found on our website.
9. Mr X and the organisation had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Homelessness law and guidance

10. Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities set out councils’ powers and duties to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
11. A council must secure interim accommodation for applicants and their household if it has reason to believe they may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need. (Housing Act 1996, section 188)
12. If councils are satisfied applicants are homeless and eligible for assistance, they must take reasonable steps to secure accommodation. This is called the relief duty. When a council decides this duty has come to an end, it must notify the applicant in writing. The relief duty usually lasts 56 days. (Housing Act 1996, section 189B)
13. If, at the end of the relief duty, a council is satisfied an applicant is homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need the council has a duty to secure that accommodation is available for their occupation. This is called the main housing duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 193)
14. The law says councils must ensure all accommodation provided to homeless applicants is suitable for the needs of the applicant and members of his or her household.  This duty applies to interim accommodation and accommodation provided under the main homelessness duty.  (Housing Act 1996, section 206 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.2)
15. The duty to provide suitable accommodation is immediate, non-deferrable, and unqualified. (Elkundi, R (On the Application Of) v Birmingham City Council [2022] EWCA Civ 601)

What happened

16. Mr X told the Council he had been illegally evicted from his accommodation. The Council arranged a telephone assessment with Mr X in late February 2024 with Officer 1. During the assessment, Mr X told the Council about his medical conditions. The Council recorded that Mr X sometimes used a walking stick and needed ground floor accommodation unless the property had a lift.
17. The Council sent Mr X a “vulnerability assessment” form to complete to find out more about his health conditions. Mr X told the Council he would need help to complete the form, because of his disabilities. He returned the form a few days later, giving extensive details about his physical and mental health and learning needs. He said he sometimes used a wheelchair to get around outside.
18. In the form, Mr X also told the Council he needed communication in writing because he struggled with phone calls.
19. The Council told Mr X it would send the form to its third-party medical advisor.
20. In early March, Mr X told the Council he would have nowhere to sleep from 12 March and asked for an update. Mr X sent a further email three days later when Officer 1 had not replied.
21. On 12 March, the Council told Mr X the medical information he provided with the vulnerability form was outdated and it needed up-to-date information from his doctor. Officer 1 told Mr X “there is a process and procedure I must adhere to” and that once the Council received the medical report and other information, it could “then present your case to the panel who will then make a decision on whether you are placed in temporary accommodation.”
22. In reply, Mr X pointed out to the Council its legal duty to provide interim accommodation to people who might be homeless and in priority need. He repeated that he would have nowhere to sleep that night.
23. Mr X also complained to the Council. He said the Council failed to provide interim accommodation, leaving him to sleep rough, and failed to make reasonable adjustments to its communication.
24. On 18 March, Mr X emailed the Council to point out it had not replied to his email that he would be rough sleeping from 12 March.
25. On 21 March, the Council considered Mr X’s case at its temporary accommodation panel and agreed to provide interim accommodation. The Council told Mr X an officer from its bookings team would contact him by phone. Mr X reminded the Council that he had requested, as a reasonable adjustment, not to be contacted by phone. Officer 1 told Mr X that his case would now be transferred a different team. Officer 1 did not, at the time, make a referral to this team.
26. The Council booked Mr X into a hotel from that night. Mr X emailed in the evening to say an officer in the placement team had called him just before 6pm. He said this officer told him Officer 1 should have advised Mr X to come to the Council’s offices in person to get the information he needed to access the hotel.
27. The next day, the Council accepted the relief duty. Mr X told the Council he’d received a “flurry of calls” despite his repeated request for communication by email. The Council asked Mr X to sign a document about his interim accommodation. Mr X asked various questions about it. Throughout April, Mr X chased the Council for responses to his emails.
28. In mid-May, Mr X contacted the Council to say the hotel told him the Council had not arranged to rebook his room. He told the Council he would need two days’ notice if he had to move to alternative accommodation. He said the uncertainty about where he would be sleeping was causing him stress.
29. The Council contacted Mr X about viewing a privately rented property. Mr X arranged to view the property but told the Council he did not think it would be suitable. It was too small to navigate in his wheelchair and had no proper cooking facilities. In reply, the Council said the information Mr X provided did not mention he used a wheelchair. It decided to ask an Occupational Therapist (OT) to assess Mr X’s needs.
30. Mr X chased the Council for a response to his March complaint. He also said no one had responded to his emails about the hotel booking. The Council said it had extended his booking for one night but from then, the hotel had no rooms available. Mr X told the Council he could not move on such short notice. He said he needed time to arrange to move the equipment he needed to manage his disability.
31. The Council extended Mr X’s stay at the hotel to early June. Officer 1 sent an internal email asking for Mr X’s case to be transferred to its team working with people with complex needs.
32. At the end of May, Mr X once again asked the Council to confirm if his stay at the hotel would be extended. The booking was due to end on Monday 3 June. The Council extended the booking to mid-June. It told Mr X at 7pm on Friday 31 May.
33. The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint in mid-June. It apologised for the delay responding to the complaint. It did not uphold his complaint about delay providing interim accommodation. It said it needed up-to-date medical evidence before it had reason to believe Mr X might be in priority need. The Council said it provided interim accommodation once it received the new medical information from his doctor. Mr X asked the Council to consider his complaint at stage two of its complaint process.
34. In late June, the Council transferred Mr X’s case to its complex needs team and allocated it to a new officer.
35. At the beginning of July, the OT assessed Mr X and recommended wheelchair accessible housing.
36. The next day, the Council noted in an internal email that the OT report meant Mr X’s current accommodation in the hotel was “medically unsuitable” and asked to put him on the transfer list for alternative accommodation.
37. In mid-August, the Council noted in an internal email that it should already have made a decision about whether it owed Mr X the main housing duty. It noted that once it did so, it could change Mr X’s priority for social housing to reflect the OT’s recommendations.
38. The Council responded to Mr X’s stage two complaint in late September. It did not uphold Mr X’s complaint about interim accommodation. It apologised for the delay transferring Mr X’s case to the complex needs team.
39. The Council accepted the main housing duty to Mr X in October 2024. He remains living in the hotel.

My findings

40. I set out my findings on the complaint in the order they appear in paragraph one.

Interim accommodation

41. The Council has a duty to provide interim accommodation if it has reason to believe an applicant might be eligible, homeless, and in priority need. This is a low threshold. By 12 March when Mr X said he had nowhere to sleep, the Council had extensive information about his physical and mental health needs. This more than met the low threshold to trigger the duty to provide interim accommodation. The Council should not have waited for the outcome of its referral to the third-party medical assessor or the up-to-date medical information.
42. The Council should have provided interim accommodation on 12 March. Failure to do so was fault. As a result, Mr X spent nine days sleeping rough. This is a significant injustice to Mr X.

Delay

43. The Council told Mr X it was referring him to the complex needs team in March. It did not actually make the referral until two months later. This delay was fault. There was then a further delay of a month before the complex needs team allocated the case to a new officer. This further delay was fault.
44. As Officer 1 told Mr X in March that they were no longer the allocated officer, this delay caused Mr X avoidable confusion, which is an injustice.
45. The Council accepted the relief duty in March. It should have decided whether it owed the main housing duty by May. It did not accept the main housing duty until October. This delay of five months was fault. This denied Mr X access to the priority for social housing he qualified for following the OT assessment in July. This is an injustice to Mr X. It also denied him his statutory right to review the suitability of the hotel accommodation. This did not cause a significant injustice however, because the Council had already accepted this was unsuitable for him.

Suitability

46. All accommodation provided to homeless applicants must be suitable. The Council recognised the hotel was unsuitable for Mr X in July. Despite this, he remains living in the hotel eight months later. This was fault. As a result, Mr X is living in accommodation which does not meet his needs arising from disability. This is an injustice to Mr X.

Communication

47. Mr X told the Council about his need for a reasonable adjustment to communication in early March. There is no evidence the Council identified this request or acted on it at the time. Failure to do so was fault.
48. Instead, the Council continued to contact Mr X by phone. Mr X’s physical disability and his learning needs make communicating by phone difficult for him. He finds it more difficult to understand information given verbally and may not remember important details. The Council’s fault caused Mr X avoidable distress, which is an injustice. The Council aggravated this injustice by continuing to ignore Mr X’s requests for communication in writing as a reasonable adjustment until May.
49. The records show Mr X had to chase the Council, sometimes several times, for responses to his emails. Failure to communicate with Mr X in good time was fault. Mr X asked questions about documents which, from the evidence I have seen, remain unanswered. This was fault. This caused Mr X avoidable distress and meant he spent significant avoidable time chasing the Council. This is an injustice to Mr X.
50. The Council continued to communicate poorly in response to Mr X’s concerns about rebooking his interim accommodation. However, Mr X remained in the same hotel throughout, so the injustice to him from this further fault is limited to the distress and frustration caused by not knowing if he needed to move.

Complaint handling

51. The Council’s complaint policy says it will respond to complaints within 20 working days. It took the Council 69 working days to respond to Mr X’s stage one complaint and 70 days to respond at stage two. These delays were fault.
52. There is no evidence the Council contacted Mr X to tell him about the delay or keep him updated. This is not in line with the Ombudsman’s Principles of Good Administration and is fault. It caused Mr X avoidable distress, which is an injustice.

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Action

53. To remedy the injustice to Mr X from the faults I have identified, the Council has agreed to:
1. Apologise to Mr X in line with our guidance on Making an effective apology;
2. Take steps to provide Mr X with suitable temporary accommodation which meets the needs identified by the OT;
3. Pay Mr X £2,750 made up of:
• £500 for the avoidable distress and risk to his health of spending nine days rough sleeping;
• £200 for each month he spent in unsuitable hotel accommodation from July 2024 to the present.
• £250 in recognition of the avoidable distress caused by delay progressing his homeless application.
• £250 for the distress caused by the Council’s poor communication and failure to make reasonable adjustments.
• £150 for the avoidable frustration and distress caused by the Council’s poor complaint handling.
1. Continue to pay Mr X £200 a month until the Council provides suitable alternative accommodation, otherwise ends its duty, or six months have passed. After six months, if Mr X has not moved, we may consider investigating a new complaint.
54. The Council should take this action within four weeks of my final decision.
55. Following previous investigations, we have made extensive recommendations to this Council to improve its homelessness service. I have not repeated those here. However, the Council should also take the following action to improve its services:
1. Ensure all frontline staff understand the Council’s duty to make reasonable adjustments and know how to identify, record, and act on a request for reasonable adjustments. Provide training or guidance as needed.
56. The Council should tell the Ombudsman about the action it has taken within three months of my final decision.

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Decision

57. I have completed my investigation. There was fault by the Council. The action I have recommended is a suitable remedy for the injustice caused.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman