onthemove

If you are successful in qualifying for inclusion on our housing register, you are not guaranteed an offer of social housing. This is because demand far outweighs supply.

 

Several factors influence whether a household receives social housing and if so, how long they were waiting before receiving an offer. These factors include:

• supply of newbuild and existing social housing (i.e. re-lets),
• size of property required,
• preferences or needs regarding location and property type (i.e. tower-block flats, houses, bungalows, adapted/non-adapted, ground floor, with/without a garden),
• whether they are interested in and/or meet the age criteria for living in sheltered (older persons) housing – which is less popular. (Those in lower bands are more likely to be housed if they will consider sheltered housing).
• whether they have a pet/the pet criteria of the housing they are interested in
• the frequency with which the applicant is placing bids/expressing an interest in available social housing.

 

Of those allocated social housing in 2023/24, the average number of days between registration and allocation is shown below:

Accessible property:

• Non age restricted = 646 for minor adaptations, 1,017 for fully wheelchair accessible homes
• Older persons (sheltered) housing = 237 for minor adaptations, 236 for fully wheelchair accessible homes

 

Non age restricted properties – average days to be housed from initial registration (includes adapted):

	Bedroom size
Band of priority	Studio	1 Bed	2 Bed	3 Bed	4 Bed	5 Bed
Emergency				621
One suitable offer (owed the main homelessness duty, direct let)	111	379	852	751	680
Band A	240	347	238	775	423
Band B		339	932	1246		908
Band C		1200	2589
Band D			98

 

Older persons (sheltered) housing – average days to be housed from initial registration (includes adapted):

	Bedroom size
Band of priority	Studio	1 Bed
One suitable offer	85	51
Band A	420	170
Band B	89	162
Band C	216	323
Band D	129	100

 

A breakdown of the number of properties we let in 2023/24 is shown below, as can be seen, those in lower bands of priority are rarely allocated non age restricted sheltered housing.

Band of priority	Non age restricted	Sheltered (older persons)	Total
Emergency	3		3
One suitable offer	62	4	66
Band A	81	21	102
Band B	28	40	68
Band C	5	47	52
Band D	1	17	18
Grand Total	180	129	309

Details regarding allocated properties, including the band of the successful applicant, their effective date, the number of bidders and a photograph of the property can be found by clicking ‘Properties and search recent lets’ -> ‘Recent Lets’: Search properties - onthemove (southend-on-the-move.org.uk).