7th September 2026
Anyone can make a referral. Families, social workers, care providers, commissioners, and the person themselves. You do not need to be a professional and you do not need a form filled in by someone with a job title.
What you do need, before a referral can go very far, is a funded care package. That is the part that surprises people, and it is the reason some families spend months talking to housing providers and getting nowhere.
Falcon Housing Association welcomes referrals from prospective tenants, families, local authorities and care providers across the UK. Here is what happens, in the order it actually happens.
Key takeaway
- Anyone can refer. There is no gatekeeper. A parent, a sibling, a support worker, a commissioner or the person themselves can pick up the phone.
- The care assessment comes first. Housing providers can talk to you at any stage, but a tenancy cannot usually be set up until the local authority has assessed needs and agreed how support will be funded.
- The strongest referrals arrive with a needs assessment, a care and support plan, confirmation of funding, and the name of the care provider. Missing pieces slow things down more than anything else.
- Tell us the practical preferences early: area, self-contained or shared, adaptations needed, pets, who they want to live near. These decide which properties are worth looking at.
- Refer before everything is finalised. Families who open the housing conversation while the care assessment is still running consistently get more options than those who wait.
Start with the council, not the property
If no assessment has happened yet, this is the first move. Contact adult social care at the council for the area where the person currently lives and ask for a needs assessment under the Care Act 2014.
The council must assess where it appears an adult has needs for care and support, whatever their financial position. Anyone can request it on the person’s behalf, and where someone has substantial difficulty being involved, the council must arrange an independent advocate.
That assessment leads to an eligibility decision, then a care and support plan and a personal budget covering the cost of meeting eligible needs. That package is what makes a supported living tenancy workable.
Rent is a separate matter and usually met through Housing Benefit where the local authority agrees the property is specified accommodation. So the money conversation splits in two, and neither half is usually the barrier families expect.
What to have ready when you refer
You do not need all of this to make contact. You will need most of it before a tenancy can be offered.
The needs assessment and care and support plan, or at least their current status. The funding position, including which local authority is responsible and whether the package is agreed. The care provider, if one has been chosen, since housing and care are separate and both have to be in place.
Then the practical detail, which does more to narrow a property search than anything else. Which areas work and which do not. Whether the person wants self-contained accommodation or is open to a shared home. What adaptations are needed. Whether there are pets. Whether being near family matters more than being near a particular day service.
Also worth saying out loud: what has gone wrong before. A previous placement that broke down tells a housing provider more useful information than a list of diagnoses. Nobody is judging. It helps us avoid repeating it.
What happens after a referral
The first thing is a conversation, not a form. We want to understand the person before we start matching them to buildings.
If we have something suitable, we will talk through the property, the area and, where it is a shared home, who already lives there. We would rather arrange introductions and more than one visit than push a decision.
Where the person has support needs that require adaptations, we bring an occupational therapist and the care provider into the process before anyone commits. A property that nearly works is not worth signing for.
Then tenancy sign-up, the Housing Benefit application, any adaptations, and a move-in date built around the person rather than around a void.
If we do not have anything suitable, we will say so. That is not a brush-off. A referral we cannot meet is better answered honestly in a week than left drifting for four months.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Who can refer someone to supported living?
A: Anyone. The person themselves, a family member, a friend, a social worker, a care provider or a local authority commissioner. There is no requirement for a professional to make the first contact.
Q: Do you need a social worker to get supported living?
A: In most cases yes, because the care package is funded through the local authority following a Care Act assessment. People funding their own care privately have more direct routes, though the housing side still needs to work.
Q: Can you refer someone before their care package is agreed?
A: Yes, and it is often sensible. A housing provider can talk through options and start understanding the person while the assessment runs. A tenancy usually cannot be finalised until funding is in place.
Q: How long does it take to move into supported living?
A: It varies widely, driven by the council’s assessment timescales, funding agreement, property availability and any adaptations. Adaptations alone typically add months.
Q: What information do you need for a referral?
A: The needs assessment and care and support plan status, the funding position and responsible local authority, the care provider, and practical preferences including area, self-contained or shared, adaptations and pets.
Q: Can you refer to a supported living provider in a different area?
A: Yes. Out of area placements happen regularly, particularly for specialist needs, though funding responsibility and ordinary residence rules need working through with the council.
Q: What if there is nothing suitable available?
A: Ask the commissioning team what is being done about local supply, since local authorities have duties to assess supported housing need and publish strategies. Keep the referral open with providers so you hear when something changes.
The honest bit about timescales
Nobody can promise a date, and anyone who does should be treated with suspicion.
The variables are the council’s assessment queue, whether funding has been agreed, whether a suitable property exists in the right area, whether adaptations are needed, and in shared homes whether the match is right. Any one of those can add months.
Care Act assessments have no statutory time limit. The National Autistic Society advises chasing the council if you have had no reply within six weeks, which is sensible.
Adaptations funded through a Disabled Facilities Grant run in months rather than weeks. If that is likely, factoring it in from the start is better than discovering it in week three.
What families can control is how early they start and how complete the information is when they refer. Both genuinely shorten things.
If a referral goes nowhere
Sometimes it stalls, and there are routes.
If the council has not assessed, chase in writing, quoting the date you first asked. If the assessment happened but the person was found ineligible, ask for the decision and reasoning in writing, then use the council’s complaints process and, if needed, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which investigates adult social care complaints free of charge.
If funding is agreed but no suitable property exists locally, ask the commissioning team what is being done about it. Local authorities now have duties to assess supported housing need in their areas and produce supported housing strategies, so the supply question is theirs as well as yours.
Organisations like Mencap, the National Autistic Society and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation run free advice lines and publish template letters. Use them.
Make a referral
Tell us about the person rather than the paperwork. We will tell you honestly what we can do, including when the answer is that we are not the right fit.
Call 0191 406 4857 or email hello@falconha.org. You can also see our available supported living properties and read about Specialist Supported Housing.