I have done hundreds if not thousands of homechecI ks over the years, I always insist on seeing everyone who lives in the house no matter who they are and if they don't have a dog I take one of mine to see how they interact with a dog. You can tell a lot by this, every rescue has always backed my homecheck, I can't say that for the RSPCA, it was so bad that I told them if they done it again I wouldn't do any more homechecks. I once went to do a homecheck for them and they already had the dog which refused to let me in the house, they had very young children. My recommendation was to get the dog back but it wasn't followed.
I have only had 2 dogs from a rescue, it was the same one and was lied to both times about the dog. I found out afterwards that this person was know to like to get a dog a home and many were sent back. One was my little Gracie who tried to kill every dog she saw, she was supposed to be dog friendly and the other Bonnie, I was told she didn't have any Collie in her, she is Collie/Labrador. They were not staying with that rescue, thankfully it doesn't exist now.
I do homechecks for a lot of rescues still, these do take a lot of care when homing a dog, they don't go up for rehoming until they have been assessed properly, they are vaccinated, wormed, treated for fleas and neutered. They also have full rescue back-up for the dog's life and they will take the dog back if any problems.
Unfortunately not all rescues are like these, quite a lot will vaccinate, neuter etc but won't take them back, that happened to a dog that I fostered, the owner's circumstances changed and they needed to send him back, not his fault, 3.5 years later they are still waiting. This rescue say they take them back.
These rescues take dogs from the pounds when their time is up, as there is no known history on these dogs they are very careful when assessing them, this assessment lasts weeks to make sure the dog gets the right home.
When someone wants a dog most homecheck, very few don't, the homechecker has a big responsibility and need to get it right.
The dog that killed this little girl was an American Bull Dog, the media has said it was several different breeds but I have not seen one give the right breed. The dog didn't come from a rescue, it came from a pound and had no known history apart from the time in the pound. Most pounds don't vaccinate, neuter etc. nor do the homecheck so are leaving themselves wide open for this sort of thing to happen, rescues have been saying for years that this will happen one day and it has.
The Rottie on Breakfast shows what can be achieved with a dog if it is in the right home, Manchester Dogs Home doesn't homecheck, there are a lot of volunteers who would willingly do the homechecks for them, all homechecks are done by volunteers who don't take a penny for doing them.
I once was asked to do a homecheck for an 8 month old Staffy, they had just lost a dog and had 2 other oldies, one needing a lot of medical treatment. They were not sure about this Staffy, they went for an older more sedate dog because of the dog that has health and mobility problems but the rescue recommended this Staffy.
As soon as I saw the other 2 dogs I knew this was the wrong dog for them and had the embarrassing job of telling them, thankfully they agreed with me and refused the dog. This was supposed to be a good rescue who was doing their best to find homes for Staffies but this time it was the wrong home.
Most rescues won't home a dog if there are children under 5 years old, some it is 7 years old, I know from experience that many people are abusive when you tell them their children are too young, I used to take the phone calls for one rescue and was often verbally abused for this.
Thankfully dogs don't lie, humans do, you get an instinct for lying when you do a lot of homechecks but no matter how hard you try they are so practiced that you can't catch them lying. When the dog isn't suitable they blame the rescue.
Rescuing dogs is a thankless job and most people wouldn't do it but for the dogs.