A homeless woman’s mental health deteriorated as she was forced to sofa surf for three months due to delays in Sheffield Council’s processing of her application for support, a report has found.

It comes as figures show the council is accepting fewer homelessness applications in Sheffield, assessing a lower proportion of households as requiring support.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found that Miss X was forced to sofa surf for three months after the case officer who initially handled her application left the council.

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Miss X told the council she was “threatened with homelessness” after she was told she needed to leave the property she was staying in. This means the council has a legal obligation to help her find accommodation.

She said she could sofa surf for a short period of time, but after the case officer who initially handled her application left the council, her case fell through the cracks, leading to a three-month delay in its processing. During this time, Miss X was forced to sofa surf without a place to live, which she said “affected her physical and mental health”.

Within one month of the case being re-allocated and the council accepting the main housing duty, Miss X was offered a property and was rehoused.

The council said the backlog in homelessness cases contributed to the delay in Miss X’s application. The Ombudsman said it is satisfied that the council has made service improvements to address the backlog and better serve future applicants.

Figures show Sheffield Council is offering fewer protection duties against homelessness. In the year to March, the council assessed 3,380 households as requiring a duty. This was down from 3,938 the year before.

While the number of total applications fell by around a tenth, this was mostly due to a fall in the number of applications assessed as being owed a prevention or relief duty. Only 92% of households were required to be owed a duty last year, down from 98% in 2023-24.

Councillor Douglas Johnson, chair of the Housing Policy Committee at Sheffield City Council, said: “We acknowledged to the Ombudsman what happened in this case. We apologised to the customer for the delay and rectified the situation as soon as we could.

“A backlog of cases led to this error, which we have since cleared. The Ombudsman recognised this and referenced it in their decision.”

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