Housing Needs Service

We are a front line housing service providing help and assistance to members of our community in the most extreme housing need. Meeting housing need demands a fast-paced and creative response.  

Our team  

Our service has been restructured to place homelessness prevention at the forefront of what we do. We have also brought together key homelessness services into one team:    

• the acquisitions and procurement hub that works locally and nationally sourcing suitable, high quality, affordable housing solutions to meet council wide demand
• management of the social housing waiting list for all Lewisham citizens in housing need across the borough
• provision of housing advice services for families and single customers
• all the supporting financial and business services needed to manage the business.   

As a member of the Housing Needs Service, you will be:  

• working tirelessly to make a difference
• working with a wide range of professionals from other departments including, housing benefit, private sector housing and social care
• taking decisions on a daily basis that impact on the life of your customers
• taking tough decisions but be proud to be part of a service with a record for fairness, creativity and keeping the customer at the heart of everything we do.    

Our achievements   

London is in the midst of a housing crisis, with homelessness on the increase and the demand for affordable properties considerably outstripping supply. Lewisham is an ambitious borough committed to tackling this crisis through innovative schemes, effective management and partnership working to deliver results for our residents. 

Here are a few of our successes:     

• Our development programme to build the first council housing in 30 years is well underway with 60 units completed to date. We aim to deliver over 500 new council houses by March 2018.
• The construction of 24 pop-up housing units for homeless families and four large commercial units at PLACE/Ladywell. This award-winning scheme makes best use out of a site earmarked for future regeneration and can be moved to a new site within the borough when required.
• The expansion of our temporary accommodation profile through acquisition, redevelopment and partnership working to tackle homelessness by ensuring the best use of our existing assets and the acquisition of other suitable assets.
• Embarking on an ambitious joint venture with a private partner to construct a mixed tenure development on council land, delivering affordable units for local residents on low incomes alongside properties for rent at market levels.
• Effective management and proactive working to reduce the number of households that are placed in nightly paid temporary accommodation to their lowest number in two years.
• Stabilising the overall number of households that are placed into temporary accommodation at a time where demand is significantly outstripping supply.
• Introduction of new ways of working and adoption of new policies to enable a more robust approach to tackling homelessness and to allow the service to appropriately and promptly respond to the increasing pressures of the housing crisis.

We want to hear from you

Whilst we are proud of our successes, we acknowledge our need to continue to improve our service and to develop new ways of addressing the challenges we face. If you believe you’re the right person to work in a forward-thinking organisation dedicated to improving lives then we’d like to hear from you.