Asylum destitution and a call to action

Last Sunday was homelessness Sunday and I was asked to contribute something to the Carrs Lane Service about homelessness in the asylum system. I said this. 

Homelessness is an immensely complicated reality, and neither the causes nor the solutions are straightforward.

And then there is asylum destitution. What marks it out as distinct from other forms of homelessness is that it is not caused by people falling through the gaps in a system that hasn’t successfully supported them. Asylum destitution is the system. Whatever the government’s rhetoric on wanting to end homelessness, deliberately making people homeless is written into asylum policy.

I have met people who are victims of this system. 

I have had hundreds of conversations with asylum seekers. Some will always stay with me. I want to tell you one such story.

Being an English teacher at St Chad’s Sanctuary was never just about language teaching. I very quickly learned that it was much more about building and holding human relationships. For whatever reasons, some stories always affect you more deeply than others. M, who I first met, I think, in 2016, was one such person. I remember one time him telling me the story of being in Calais, and of “looking at England’s sky”.

I also vividly remember the day he arrived with his eviction letter from his Home Office accommodation, asking for help, believing I would be able to do something. And I remember having to explain to him that no, there was nothing I could do to enable him to stay there. I guess most of what I did at St Chad’s was about helping people. Any time when you had to say sorry, no, I can’t help at all, was always difficult. When the consequence of not being able to help was street homelessness, even more so.

He was luckier than some. He sofa-surfed briefly, and was then offered accommodation and support by Hope Projects. He prepared, with better legal advice, to navigate the notoriously complicated asylum process once more.

At the end of last year, M was finally granted asylum. Recognised by the state to be a genuine refugee. Four years of needless suffering and anxiety came to a close. I remember that conversation too.

Having said that the causes and solutions of homelessness are incredibly complex, that’s not true for this. Asylum destitution does have both a simple cause: government policy; and a simple solution: change it!

After not doing so for several months during the pandemic, as of the 15^th September, the Home Office have once again started sending eviction notices to people who will have nowhere else to turn. Into the second wave of the pandemic, into approaching winter. Into a context where staying with friends is less possible, where charities have reduced capacity, where night shelters remain closed.

There is a long-term demand to stop asylum destitution completely: but there’s also a short term one to say no-one should be left deliberately homeless by our government during a pandemic. If you wish to add your voice to this campaign, you might want to join the NACCOM campaign to draw a house, and on it write a message to send to the Home Secretary asking for an immediate halt to evictions from asylum accommodation.

For the attention of the Home Secretary

Rt Hon Priti Patel
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

www.naccom.org.uk for more information