Starting today (10th July 2025), new regulations have come into effect to exempt care leavers under 25 and victims of domestic abuse from any local connection or residency tests for social housing applied by Local Authorities in England. Veterans of the Regular Armed Forces were also made exempt from local connection tests, regardless of when they served, in December 2024.
This means care leavers and victims of domestic abuse will be able to apply for social housing with councils they are not deemed 'local' to, supporting better transitions and ensuring what is often more affordable and long term accommodation is more available.
These changes apply specifically to social housing allocations, which are locally set by councils. This is separate from the 'local connection test' for statutory homelessness support, which already contains some allowances for care leavers and victims of domestic abuse, detail of which can be found here. The new guidelines should further strengthen protections to ensure that neither young people leaving care nor domestic abuse survivors are unfairly penalised for not having a local connection. This change applies to all councils in England.
We encourage those working in frontline homelessness services to understand these new regulations to help break down barriers to social housing for these groups.