Coronavirus – information on Housing Moves and Lewisham Council allocations and lettings

Lettings and allocations of council properties in Lewisham is handled by Lewisham Council. They have provided us with the following information that you might find useful about this process during the coronavirus emergency.

At this challenging time, the Council’s focus remains on protecting the health and wellbeing of service users, partners and staff.  They are continuing to provide services but how they deliver these will change in that they are reducing face-to-face contact.

The allocations and lettings team will continue providing the following services:

• Temporary lettings
• Applications (on-line housing register)
• Medical advice (Medical assessments for applicants, Lewisham Homes, Phoenix and Hyde transferring tenants)
• Allocations (Homesearch) – including Emergency Housing panel
• Homesearch Support Officer (vulnerable/elderly adults living in the private sector and young care Leavers)
• Trading Places (tenants moving from larger to smaller accommodation)
• Initiative: cash incentive scheme, fresh start scheme, decants

Lewisham Council are suspending all face to face meetings until the end of March 2020. They will review the situation and send out further updates at a later date. For more information about help with housing, click here.

Lewisham Council’s temporary lettings team

As from today, the Council’s temporary lettings team, which manages nightly paid accommodation like bed and breakfasts, will be limiting face to face contact with customers and will be carrying out the booking of placements with their customers remotely. This means that clients will be emailed temporary accommodation offer letters and be given all the information over the phone about what to do in order to access properties.

Please do not approach Laurence House should you have any problems with nightly paid accommodation. Instead please call the number that is on your offer letter, or visit the Council’s temporary accommodation portal if you have any issues with accommodation.

You will still be able to contact the team in the usual ways, either by phone or email.

Housing Moves

Please note that Housing Moves, the Greater London authority’s scheme to enable council and housing association tenants to move to another borough, has been temporarily suspended.