Mr X approached us after he rejected hostel accommodation offered to him upon his release from prison. Mr X suffers from complex mental health conditions including PTSD and he rejected the offer of shared hostel accommodation on the basis that living there would have a severely detrimental impact on these conditions. Following Mr X’s decision to reject the offer, his local authority discharged the homeless duty owed to him and Mr X was forced to live informally with friends and family.

We assisted Mr X in making a fresh homeless application to his local authority, and made representations identifying new facts in his circumstances.

As the Local authority initially refused to accept this new application, we sent a pre-action letter and  threatened to issue judicial review proceedings if Mr x’s local authority did not accept his homelessness application.

Shortly thereafter, the local authority accepted Mr X’s application and offered him interim accommodation while they decided whether they owed him the main housing duty pursuant to The Housing Act 1996.

We then obtained expert evidence identifying why hostel accommodation was never suitable for Mr X, and explained why he was not intentionally homeless for having rejected an offer of hostel accommodation.

The local authority later accepted the main housing duty and stated they would provide him with suitable temporary accommodation. They accepted that accommodation with shared facilities would not be suitable for Mr X and that he was not intentionally homeless. They made him an offer of suitable 1-bedroom temporary accommodation that did not have shared facilities.

Mr X was then made a direct offer of suitable 1-bedroom council owed permanent accommodation which he accepted.

Mr X was represented by Ms Thea Grattidge from the housing team.