We are two months into a new government and already we have seen some positive steps in our treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, specifically in enabling them to access safe and secure homes.
Firstly, the new government has announced that they will be closing the Bibby Stockholm barge which had been used as accommodation for people seeking asylum.
Use of the barge as asylum accommodation was roundly criticised by many charities and campaign organisations, who expressed deep concerns with the conditions and the safety onboard.
We also saw another positive announcement at the start of August, when the government scrapped the ‘British workers’ social housing allocation plan.
The plans, dubbed “British homes for British workers”, would have changed the ways local councils allocated council homes – potentially making it harder for migrant peoples and refugees to access them.
These changes were planned, despite government figures showing that 90% of lead tenants in social homes are British citizens.
Where do we go from here?
These announcements are welcome, however more must be done to address the issues that migrant peoples – especially asylum seekers and refugees – face in finding safe and secure homes.
Migrant groups are especially likely to experience housing insecurity and homelessness. According to Crisis, in 2017/18, 33% of all households accepted as homeless by local authorities in England were migrants. As well as this, the Refugee Council found that there were 26,380 migrants living in hotels as temporary accommodation at the end of 2021.
The situation is especially dire for people who are refugees. Government homelessness figures released in August 2024 revealed that as many as 4,840 refugee households were homeless between January and March of this year. This is almost quadruple the number of homeless refugees at the same point last year.
Homelessness is a devastating experience for anyone to go through, especially people who have already been traumatised and forced to seek asylum in another country. This is also extremely costly on local councils who foot the bill to find accommodation for those experiencing homelessness.
In a system where so many are being forced into homelessness, no one wins. The new government must address the ongoing crisis in migrant homelessness.
A solution to this crisis
We need long-term solutions to the housing crisis, not stopgap ‘fixes’ which do not work for people claiming asylum, refugees, migrant peoples or the British taxpayer. We need more homes, and specifically more affordable and more social homes, to build our way out of this crisis.
The new government also announced plans for a Renters’ Rights Bill. Although we are yet to see the details of these reforms, they have the potential to have an extremely powerful impact on supporting all private renters into safe and secure homes.
Generation Rent’s own research in 2022 found that migrant peoples struggle especially hard to access good homes:
- 42% of migrant renters had struggled to find a landlord or letting agent to rent to them
- 74% had struggled to find somewhere affordable to rent
- 40% had struggled to find the money for a tenancy deposit
The Bill must work to address inequalities that renters born abroad face and that the reforms reach through to those at the sharpest end of the housing crisis.
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