Who would I host? And does ASSIST vet guests before they come and stay with me?

We will only refer ASSIST clients to stay with you once we have satisfied ourselves to the best of our ability, that they would be suitable to be hosted by you.

ASSIST’s male clients will be hosted by male or mixed households, and female clients will be hosted by female or mixed households, so who you might host will be affected by the make-up of your household.

New male clients being hosted over weekends will always be hosted by ‘key hosts’ who are very experienced. Only once a client has been successfully hosted by a key host twice will we refer them to other weekend hosts. We also liaise closely with our emergency accommodation team who flag up any concerns they have about any individual's behaviour.

For long-term hosting, the guest would typically have already stayed at our emergency accommodation and with weekend hosts and be well-known to us. If that’s not the case, we will invite them to stay with key hosts before placing them with a newer host.

In the case of emergency hosting for women, we liaise with our casework teams to get to know a client before introducing them to a potential host.