Deciding who is homeless

If you come to us for help because you are having trouble in your accommodation or because you have no place to live we will give you a homeless assessment. The assessment helps us to determine whether you are homeless by legal definition, what obligation we have to provide you with temporary and permanent housing and whether or not you are considered in priority need for housing.

There are four things that we consider at a homeless assessment in the following order:

• whether you are homeless.  That is you have no place to live or your accommodation is unsuitable
• whether you are in priority need for housing because you are vulnerable due to reasons including issues around ill health, age, having dependent children, being pregnant or being a victim of an emergency or violence
• whether you are intentionally homeless or not. Intentionally homeless is when you are homeless due to your own actions like antisocial behaviour or abandoning a home without reason
• whether you have a 'local connection' to Edinburgh . This means that you have lived in the city for a significant period of time, that you work in the city or that you have family in the city.

If you satisfy all four of these things we have a legal duty to find permanent (social) accommodation for you. To do this we use EdIndex.