Decision Report 201402551

Summary

Mr C was given notice to quit his rented accommodation, so he contacted the council about alternative housing. They assessed him as being involuntarily homeless. Mr C told the council that he had health issues that meant his accommodation needed certain kinds of fixtures and furnishings and that he could not share accommodation. The council, however, told him that they required a medical opinion supporting this before they would offer him only accommodation meeting these criteria. Mr C was offered various properties over the following twelve months before he accepted a temporary accommodation and, soon after, a permanent accommodation. He complained to the council that the accommodation he had been offered was unreasonable given his health issues. The council responded that they had not received any medical opinion that indicated the offers had been unreasonable. Mr C brought his complaints to us.

We found that Mr C had not supplied the council with any medical evidence that supported his views about what sort of accommodation was suitable. Given this, we decided that the council's offers were reasonable and we did not uphold his complaints. However, we did note that the council had not responded to a complaint specifically about the temporary accommodation even though they had considered and investigated it, and we made a recommendation about this.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• remind all relevant staff of the importance of responding to all matters raised and investigated as complaints.