Guest/s Having to Move on to New Accommodation
*We urgently need new hosts and properties to help us with providing a home to Ukrainian’s who are facing homelessness. Please do let us know through our email address info@northdevonwithukraine.co.uk if you are able to offer any space. Thank you!*
If a guest is asked to leave a property, for whatever reason, then it is really important that you inform us and/or the Local Authority as soon as possible, so we can take immediate and appropriate action. We are managing the rematching service for both North Devon and Torridge District Councils.
Thank you to all of you who have given us a clear date for move out, post the 6 months. We are currently working as hard as we can to see whether it is possible for them to have a re-match from the kind offers of people who have come forward willing to host.
It is absolutely fine for the sponsor or guest to find your own re-match through people you know, or strangers through social media. However, guests should not move into the new property until the checks on the new property are complete and the DBS check has also been cleared for all the adults living within the property. We’re sure you can understand why these checks are in place and are vital to the safety of the guests.
We can help to organise these checks, but it helps us to have as much notice as possible.
Sudden eviction
If you decide to suddenly evict your guests, for whatever reason, this is much harder for us but we, or the guest or host are still welcome to attempt a re-match.
However, the guest/s will most likely need to fall into *homeless status* . In these circumstances your guest/s will have to go wherever there is a space in a temporary accommodation setting, which could be anywhere across the Southwest that the Local Authority can find with space. It is normally in a Travelodge, holiday park or B&B type of setting.
We will continue to be available for the guest/s to offer our support and also try to re-match in this time, but it may take some time to organise, so do bear with us. Please give us as much notice as possible if you need an urgent re-match.
Re-matching.
We hold a register of available property offers (thank you so very much to all those incredibly generous people on the register) and therefore there are a few options for re-matching. We need to keep adding to this list – in particular the homes who are able to help out with guests with pets! Please do let us know if you feel able to host as we would be so grateful. Very sadly the war does not look like it is coming to an end and there are still many people who need our help.
We will be pre-preparing these property's by organising the checks as well as the household DBS check for safeguarding, so the idea is that they are ready to go when needed. This should work out well, but we cannot guarantee a match in every case. We only have a limited list that is available to us to go from, so we will do our best.
If there is no suitable match available, then unfortunately the guest/s will have to be referred to the Local Authority as homeless and go into temporary accommodation where it can be found.
Homeless Status
If a match breaks down suddenly, or there is no suitable match from the register, then the guest/s have to be referred to the Local Authority as homeless.
This is when the Housing team in the Local Authority take over. They will work with the guest to find them somewhere for them to go. This could be a hotel, a B&B, a holiday park or other. They will try to find somewhere within the same district that the guests/s have been living, but the spaces are so few that the guest/s could be in Cornwall, Exeter or anywhere in the southwest where there is a space. Most of the available places do not accept pets, so we are looking for some potential pet hosts for when these occasions occur. As you can imagine, this can be very distressing for people to be separated from their pets, but if they know they are in a loving home, being well looked after, then it might help.
Wherever the guest/s go, if they started here in North Devon or Torridge, then we will continue to stay in touch to offer our wrap-around support.
The homeless status is meant to just be temporary. The idea is that we will find a re-match as soon as we can and they can settle in to a new home. This is our aim and what we spend a lot of time working for. The reality is that we can only match up with who we have on the list. We will do our absolute best for the guest/s, and the hosts. We want the guest/s to be settled and able to find consistent work, school places and a home where you feel safe and can settle. We also would love to see happy hosts who find that great balance of a compassion along with clear and sustainable boundaries to guide how the household will live together.
