Housing: Care Leavers

Local authorities have discretion to manage their housing registers (waiting lists) and are free to develop solutions that make best use of their social housing stock.

Many local authorities have adopted a residency or local connection test for social housing which requires people to have a well-established local association or to have lived in the area for a certain period before they can put their name on the housing waiting list. Statutory guidance also makes clear that local authorities are expected to take proper account of special circumstances, by making provision for appropriate exceptions.

We recognise that not all care leavers wish to settle in areas that they have a local connection to. As a result, we laid regulations to exempt care leavers under 25 from local connection or residency tests in order to access social housing. These regulations came into force on 10 July 2025.

Statutory guidance was also updated to strongly encourage local authorities to give the same level of priority to those care leavers who have been placed in their authority area and wish to stay, as their own care leavers whom they have a duty to provide support and assistance up to age 25. Local authorities should also consider exempting care leavers more broadly to recognise that a lack of family stability and their experiences whilst in or leaving care might mean that some care leavers may not have a tangible connection to an area.

The guidance on social housing allocations, which the government keeps under review, can be found on gov.uk here.