Gateway conditions - “homeless” (people in hostels which aren’t supported accommodation)

We go live on Monday and I am just trying to get a feel for how many (/or how few) people we’re going to see who may meet the gateway conditions.

Does anyone have the ‘homeless’ definition to hand? I am just wondering how widely it’s been defined i.e. does it include sofa surfing, living in temporary accommodation etc?

There are hostel locally which aren’t supported accommodation but I wonder whether their ‘residents’ would be ruled out of UC anyways since they’re hostel licensees.

I probably need to start doing some research!

Thanks

It’s quite a broad definition. The online claim process asks this…

“Are you homeless or living in temporary accommodation?

For Universal Credit, you don’t have to be living on the streets to be treated as homeless. It can also be because you:

can’t get into your home - for example, because your landlord has locked you out

are temporarily having to stay with friends or family because you have no other accommodation

are forced to live apart from your family or someone you would normally live with because the accommodation isn’t suitable

face a situation at home that makes it unreasonable to have to stay there - for example, risk of violence don’t have any accommodation that you have a legal right to occupy, in the UK or abroad

Temporary accommodation is:

housing that a local authority provides if a person is homeless or at risk of being made homeless in 28 days, this can include bed and breakfast accommodation and hostels any residence a person is living at that is not their usual address”

If you answer yes, you’ll get “Unfortunately based on the information you’ve given, you cannot claim [UC] right now.”

The relevant part of the regs is sched 5 para 5 of The WRA 2012 (Comm No. 9, etc) Order 2013
(See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/983/pdfs/uksi_20130983_280215_en.pdf )

Outside the digital trial area (in postcodes CR0 2, CR0 4, SE1 5, SM5 2, SM6 7, SM6 8 and SM6 9 where the gateway conditions don’t apply)

“The claimant must not–

(a)  be homeless (within the meaning of section 175 of the Housing Act 1996) and must currently reside at his or her usual address;

(b)  reside in accommodation in which care, supervision, counselling, advice or other support services (other than services connected solely with the provision of adequate accommodation) are made available to the claimant by or on behalf of the person by whom the accommodation is provided, with a view to enabling the claimant to live there;

(c)  reside in the same household as a person who is a member of the regular
forces or the reserve forces (within the meaning of section 374 of the Armed
Forces Act 2006 and who is absent from the household in connection with that role; or

(d)  own, or partly own, the property in which he or she resides”

Thank you!  So if you were to answer yes to the homelessness question, even if it wasn’t the case, would you then have problems claiming a legacy benefit?