Being offered public and community housing
Offers of public housing and community housing are to people with the highest needs. The home should match their needs, including its location, number of bedrooms and features.
You need to respond to any offer you receive within 3 days. If you don’t and we can’t contact you, we may remove your application from the housing register.
When we contact you, we will ask if you’re ready to move and if you are, you can inspect the property.
If you’re not ready to move for a short period of time, your application will be made inactive on the housing register until you are ready.
Inspecting the property
We give you the keys and you can look at the property. You must return the keys to us by 4pm on the same day.
If you want to move in
When you return the keys, you can tell the Housing Service Centre if you’d like to move in. We then make an appointment with you to sign a tenancy agreement.
Refusing a housing offer
We expect you to accept housing offers that:
- meet your needs based on the information you gave us. This includes the type of home you want to live in, the areas where you want to live, and your health and wellbeing needs. We also consider how many bedrooms you are eligible for and need.
- are suitable for your needs.
If you refuse two reasonable offers of housing, we will remove your application from the housing register. This means that you cannot reapply for social housing for 12 months. You can ask for a review of this decision.
Please contact the Housing Service Centre to discuss any changes to the type of home you require. This may include changing where you want to live or giving us more information about your needs. We will work with you to update your application to ensure you can accept a future offer of social housing.
If you don’t agree that the offer of housing we make to you meets your needs, you need to discuss your reasons with your Housing Service Centre. We will work with you to understand if your housing needs have changed and help with other housing services which may better suit your needs.
Not responding to an offer
If you don’t respond to an offer of housing within 3 days and after we have made every effort to contact you, we cancel the offer and your application and send you a letter telling you why this has happened.
If your application is removed from the housing register because you did not respond to an offer, contact your Housing Service Centre to discuss your housing options.
It’s important to tell us about any changes to your circumstances and housing needs to ensure we have your current contact information.
If you’re unhappy with the decision
If you believe our decision to offer you a property or remove your application from the housing register was wrong, unfair or unreasonable, contact your nearest Housing Service Centre to discuss your situation and request an application for review.
If you apply for a review, you must give us as much information as possible to explain why our decision was wrong, unfair or unreasonable.