Eleven pioneering housing organisations have helped develop vital new guidance on housing services to refugees and new migrants through a two-year project, 'Opening Doors', which is launching nationally on 7 August 2009.

The guidance was developed by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and the Housing Associations' Charitable Trust (Hact).

Front-line housing advice officers have a duty to help refugees granted leave to stay and other new migrants, but the legal situation and the options for finding them a home are complex. A new bank of guidance and reference materials is now available to housing associations and local councils to help them improve their service in this field.

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The guidance includes information on how people enter Britain, their legal status and entitlements, how to assess housing need and what other sources of assistance housing authorities can link into. The resources now available to housing professionals in the UK include a toolkit, an on-line pack of training resources, a legally-vetted housing rights website, and evaluation report from the project and cases studies drawn from the good work of the pilot organisations.

The two-year project was supported by Communities and Local Government and the Housing Corporation, now the Homes and Communities Agency, and the Tenant Services Authority.

Richard Capie, CIH Director of Policy and Practice said: "Many housing organisations would like to develop their services to reflect the needs of refugees and other new migrants. In this project, eleven were able to do so, and we can now share this experience and the material generated. CIH hopes that social landlords generally will make use of these resources, so that in time we see a real transformation in housing and support services for communities that are often on the margins of social housing and yet have as much need as anyone else for a decent and secure home."

(CD/KMcA)