ENQUIRE: Homelessness Prevention Tool

A solution for helping customers prevent their homelessness,

ENQUIRE Housing Options is a tool that provides consistent advice that can be accessed at any time (and without the need for visiting your offices). The tool can be used by third party organisations on behalf of service users, such as the Probation Service, for example.

Use of the tool flags up to the ‘back office’ any cases where there is a risk of homelessness. In this way the tool enables homelessness to be prevented in the maximum number of cases.

ENQUIRE Housing Options is a discrete package of interlinked information that is designed to inform customers directly, in plain English.

Here are some examples of the topic areas covered:

  • Housing Options advice
  • Helping you stay in your home (homeless prevention advice)
  • Eligibility and Homelessness tests
  • Temporary Housing for homeless people
  • Appealing against the Council's decisions
  • What support is available
  • Key weblinks

Fully tailored

The standard information can be further developed so that it is targeted to the particular locality. So, for example, we would include guidance on eligibility for the housing register and CBL, would signpost people to key local agencies specialising in support and would outline specific housing opportunities in the area (local lettings agencies, for example).

Although ENQUIRE has been designed to allow customers to self-advise (thus allowing frontline staff to be more productive), it is important to identify occasions when follow up is required. This could be because:

  • A Housing Register application is required
  • Further advice on the affordability or suitability of various options is needed
  • A household is at risk of homelessness, and intervention to prevent this is appropriate
  • There is a reason to believe the household is homeless or threatened with homelessness, and a Part 7 assessment is appropriate

Destin Solutions has particular expertise in developing bespoke HTML forms and incorporating them into our existing tools such as those described above. We are also skilled in developing bespoke databases and reports, and have used these skills to ensure that key information about enquirers is recorded and presented to staff to be appropriately followed up.

ENQUIRE Housing Options self assessment tool links directly into a web based dashboard from which staff can access the responses provided and run reports against the entries made, to determine the total number of forms submitted during a period, for example.

Accessing these reports is fully password-protected.

Viewing Reports and monitoring homelessness prevention

When a customer completes the form our application will verify the data prior to submission, and will confirm to the user that the form has been submitted. The assessment can then be accessed by the back office team through our web-based dashboard – the application can also send an email notification to the back office to indicate that a form has been submitted, if required.

In developing the assessment form(s) we will work withyou to ensure that your specific data requirements are captured. We can also include a filtering system within the application so that you are only notified if specific criteria are met – again this will be developed based around your requirements.

Kiosk packages

To read about ENQUIRE Housing Options provided as a package with a touch screen customer kiosk for public areas, click here