Asylum accommodation
PEOPLE SEEKING SANCTUARY OFTEN WAIT YEARS TO FIND OUT IF THEY CAN REBUILD THEIR LIVES HERE
WHILE THEY WAIT THEY ARE BANNED FROM WORKING
The wait is often an incredibly difficult and isolating experience, and for too many people means living in cramped, substandard accommodation.
Local communities want to welcome their new neighbours, and help people start to build their new lives. But the choices made by central government too often make this impossible.
Asylum-seekers end up living in temporary accommodation - often in hotels - for months, with no access to community support. The accommodation is often severely sub-standard and unsanitary. People are moved from place to place at a moment's notice, seemingly at the whim of for-profit companies accountable only to their shareholders.
Central government could change this by ensuring that local councils have enough funding to provide safe, sustainable housing for everyone in their communities, including people seeking sanctuary.
In January 2023, 160 local councillors wrote to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (the department responsible for setting local authority budgets) to ask central government to stop lining the pockets of private companies, and instead make sure that local authorities have the budget they need to keep people safe.
“We as councils are committed to giving everyone in our communities the best possible chance to thrive, but find ourselves held back by inadequate funding.
”We are committed to building good community relations and working with all our diverse residents to live well together and welcome new neighbours”
"We ask the government to trust our communities and work with us, not foster racism and division via contracts with foreign governments or private companies. We need investment in housing, in education and in communities. We reject not just this latest outlandish plan, but all attempts to scapegoat and punish people on the move who are our colleagues and neighbours."
"The decision to house those seeking asylum in hotels, camps and barracks - rather than investing in long-term solutions that benefit all our communities - has very real consequences for community relations.
"Local councils have the knowledge and the will to provide better solutions, ones which build good community relations rather than stoking mistrust."
Read the full letter and list of signatories.