Housing and homes FAQs

If you are homeless or worried about becoming homeless we can help and support you. The Council has a range of legal duties to help people. This may involve giving advice and information or finding longer term housing.

You should be aware that emergency accommodation and social housing is not always available to people facing homelessness, particularly single people. We will encourage you to try and stay with family and friends in the short term whilst looking for private rented accommodation, which is the quickest way to find a new home in Hastings.

You can find more information on our  I'm at risk of being or already am homeless page and in the Key Advice: housing advice, information and guidance booklet.

You will need to get them. We cannot assist you without this documentation. If you require a birth certificate you will need to know which borough you were born in. You can go to the registry office in that area and pay for a copy of your full birth certificate or you can order one from www.gov.uk.

Please call 01424 451100.

If you are a Registered Provider tenant, please contact your Registered Provider's Housing Officer for assistance.

If you are renting privately, contact your landlord/letting agent and report the issues to them.

You can also contact the Hastings and Rother Mediation Service for help to arrange a mediation meeting.

If you are in immediate danger, please contact the Police on 999, or you can also use 101 to give information to the police or make an enquiry. Or report it online to Sussex Police. 

For more information, please go to our I'm renting page.

For more information, please go to our I have a concern about living conditions in my property page.

There are a range of government schemes to help low-income households get a foot on the property ladder. These affordable housing schemes are designed to help people, usually first time buyers, who cannot afford to buy a property that suits their household needs on the open market.

Sussex Homemove (also known as the Housing Register) is the choice based lettings scheme that Hastings Borough Council uses to advertise social housing properties available in Hastings.

You will need to complete an online pre-assessment to see if you are eligible for social housing. If you are eligible you will then be asked to complete an online application form.

At the end of the online application form you will also be asked to upload or bring in supporting documents. Your application will be assessed once we have received all your supporting documents. This will take up to four weeks.

If your application is accepted, we will let you know and then you can bid for properties on Sussex Homemove.

More information and how to apply can be found on our Sussex Homemove page.

Hastings Borough Council is not responsible for housing people seeking asylum, this is a central government responsibility. Responsibility for accommodating asylum seekers is that of the government’s preferred provider in the South East, Clearsprings Ready Homes.

Some people seeking asylum are accommodated in Hastings while their claims are being processed but this is not the responsibility of Hastings Borough Council. People seeking asylum are not the responsibility of the council and are not eligible for housing assistance.

If someone seeking asylum is successful in their application and is granted leave to remain in the UK, then, if that point they do find themselves facing homelessness they are treated in exactly the same way as any other homeless application and they would have to register through the housing allocations process.

Any homes being built for Hastings Borough Council will be allocated through the housing allocations policy including the local connection requirement.

There are several official resettlement programmes operating locally. These are:

Homes for Ukraine (managed by East Sussex County Council) – This is a scheme whereby Ukrainians are accommodated in private residences by appropriate sponsors.

UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS), formerly Syrian Resettlement Programme – After the war in Syria, the government committed to resettle 20,000 Syrians who had been displaced by the war. Hastings’ commitment to resettlement was 100 people over five years, which has been achieved. All of these placements were in private rented accommodation sourced by the council and only once this property had been identified were families brought to the UK.  

Afghan schemes, Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) – These schemes are for those Afghans that were evacuated post September 2021 in Operation Pitting when the Taliban took control of the Afghan government. The government made a commitment to individuals that had been assisting the British forces and ISAF forces (ARAP) in Afghanistan to resettle them in light of the obvious danger they were in after the change in government. The ACRS cohort are those that have British citizenship or are the immediate families of British citizens in danger from the Taliban government.

Housing for Afghans is similar to the Syrian scheme, where a private rented property is identified by the council and then matched to a family on the scheme. We then provide up to three years’ integration support to families to enable them to be self-sufficient. This is done through intensive English classes and employment support to ensure they have a sustainable tenancy for the future.

Alongside these schemes there are also Local Authority Housing Fund properties, which are purchased by Hastings Borough Council with the help of the government to provide temporary accommodation for anyone the council has a duty to house and provide the council with sustainable housing stock for the future.

The government have introduced a new scheme to help house Afghans, working with Mears (an asylum accommodation provider). They are tasked by the Ministry of Defence to find suitable private rented property in Hastings and we provide the integration support over three years.