Who to contact if you are homeless

Homeless Action Plan 2007-2010

Operational Criteria for the Common Assessment of Homelessness

A proposed short-list of criteria useful to the assessment of a person’s experience of homelessness has been developed through a process of workshop consultation with the four Dublin local authorities and  the Homeless Agency Partnership stakeholders. This has also involved the Centre for Housing Research, who generated an information paper for these workshops based on scoping research with statutory and voluntary service providers. This proposed shortlist of criteria will be used to deliver an initial assessment process that confirms an incidence of homelessness (rough sleeping and rooflessness). It will be utilised under a common operational criteria for the common assessment of homelessness operated by the four Dublin local authorities and will be deployed and used by all services involved in the same-day response to rough sleeping and rooflessness.

Proposed operational approach

Stage 1: When a person presents to a local authority, an initial assessment of need will be carried out of their history and current need.   All possible options to prevent the need to move into homeless services will be explored.  The Community Welfare Officer will assist the housing officer in terms of examining options other than homeless accommodation.

Stage 2: The local authority will decide whether a person is homeless and then a decision will be made as to whether they meet the criteria for homeless priority. The criteria for defining homelessness is based on the following: 1) Applicant has no occupation and is unable to occupy / remain in otherwise suitable accommodation 2) Applicant is living in hospital, county home, night shelter. 3) Applicant is unable to provide accommodation from their own resources.

Stage 3: It may not always be possible to assess qualifying criteria in one sitting. 
Shortlist:

  • Applicant must be from the local authority area
  • Applicant must have no other form of secure accommodation available to them.
  • Applicant must not be a homeowner
  • Applicants must stay in regular contact with local authority
  • Applicants will need to produce a number of forms of documentation i.e. passport, birth certificate etc.
  • Applicants who have a history of anti-social behaviour must demonstrate signs of improved behaviour and co-operate with the local authority.

Note: The implementation of a common operational definition is dependent on the reconfiguration of current provision into a homeless and housing support pathway model where key services are developed locally in order to ensure needs can be met.  The implementation of the Pathways to Home model is also reliant on the move towards utilising the range of housing options in response to housing need (i.e. from social housing, private rented, support to live independently scheme and RAS.)