Housing related support provides assistance to people who, for a variety of reasons, need help to access or sustain their home. The Council funds a range of service providers to support vulnerable customers to live as independently as possible and whilst some of these services provide accommodation, the majority provide floating or outreach support to people in their own homes. On 1st December 2014 Sheffield City Council changed the way people access housing related support, through the introduction of a Housing Support Pathway.

The Housing Support Pathway will improve the way these support services are accessed and managed. From 1^st December 2014 it will no longer be possible to make a direct referral to providers for accommodation based supported housing; instead, all referrals will go through the Access Team within the Council’s Housing Solutions service. This will enable the Council to ensure that the most appropriate accommodation and support is offered to customers, matching provision with need. Customers, and organisations that are supporting them, will still be able to make direct referrals to providers for floating support. However, referrals for accommodation based support will be made through the Access Team in Housing Solutions.

There will also be a number of trusted assessors who will be able to assess a customer’s need for supported housing and refer into the Access Team.

These assessors will be a limited number of organisations who have a specialist role with customers, such as community mental health teams, probation officers and certain health professionals.

Earlier this year a single telephone access point was introduced within the Housing Solutions Service in preparation for the Housing Support Pathway. This single access point offers housing advice and options to customers over the telephone, thereby reducing the need for customers to make a specific journey to the city centre. This has proved to offer customers a more flexible way of accessing the service. From 1^st December customers should call this Access Team to access Supported Housing as well as for housing and homelessness options and advice. Experienced and knowledgeable officers will be able to offer advice and advise customers about the options available to them.

Customers can continue to make a homeless application in person at Howden House if they wish to do so.

The Housing Solutions Access Team number is 0114 273 6306 and the Access Team operates from 8.30am – 5pm each week day, they can also be contacted via email housingadviceandoptions@sheffield.gov.uk

The Out of Hours service will still remain in place from 5pm – 8.30am for all emergency homelessness, the Out of Hours telephone number is 0800 731 1689

If you are a authorised ‘Trusted Assessor’ completing an assessment form on behalf of a client you should send the completed assessment to Housingsolutionsgeneric@sheffield.gov.uk

Women’s Aid contact details are as follows:

Office line at Refuge 1:                      8.30a.m. to 5.30pm                0114 236 6423 / 0114 236 2518.

Fax line at refuge 1:                           8.30a.m. to 5.30pm                0114 327 1245.

Postal address for Refuge 1:             PO Box 4917, Sheffield, S8 2JQ.

Office lines at Refuge 2:                    8.30a.m. to 5.30pm                0114 244 6573.

Postal address for Refuge 2:             PO Box 5008, Sheffield, S12 9ED.

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General email: mail@womensaid.org.uk  Website: www.womensaid.org.uk