In case anyone was in any doubt, hotels are not suitable long-term accommodation for anybody, least of all for families. Being cramped together in one room, in often poor quality accommodation, with every aspect of life controlled by others with no freedom, flexibility or choice seriously impacts on people's wellbeing. This is true of all the hotels and hostels used for temporary accommodation: whether through the asylum process or in local council temporary accommodation.
The hotel with which I have had the closest relationship over a long period of time, and which is, even compared to the other serco hotels, the worst one locally, is in the process of being emptied. Almost all the families have been there for many, many months. Despite everything that is wrong with their current accommodation, and the list is very long, they are now facing upheaval and uncertainty. There is no taking into account of the tentative roots they have put down here: they are being scattered across the region. They will have to find new support networks, new communities, new school places, and of course the indeterminate wait for the home office to make decisions on their cases continues. Despite the stress of all of this, there is excitement in the air too: their new accommodation probably won't be great, but it will offer some of the little things we take for granted like being able to cook the food they like on a schedule to suit themselves. It will be a place they can call home which a hotel can never really be.
We have built relationships with these families. Some, undoubtedly will keep in touch, but I have been doing this long enough to know that, whatever we say to each other now, many I may never see again, and that too has to be ok. The letting go doesn't invalidate that which mattered at a moment in time.
Over the time we have known them, there is much we have not been able to do or change. So much is beyond our control and in the hands of those who don't care enough to make the changes that would make life more bearable. The campaigning and advocacy is essential but in the current climate, it ofttimes feels like the best it might do is to slightly slow the direction of travel which is heading the opposite way to where we would like it to. As the growing backlog of claims and a failure to provide suitable accommodation has meant more and more families have been accommodated in hotels our time and energies have been spread more thinly and we have felt pulled in different directions. It is very easy to be aware of all of this: of the stuff that makes life hard, the stuff that we can't do anything to improve; the times we have to say, sorry, no, I can't do that.
But as we said our goodbyes, that was not what the families remembered.
The heartfelt thank yous and the fond farewells felt entirely genuine. I was deeply touched by the little notes and drawings some of the children gave me and the things some of the parents, struggling with their limited English, wanted to say as we said our goodbyes.
I believe they remembered the listening ear and the checking in; the empathy and the shoulders to cry on; the little gifts; the welcome sessions, English lessons and lots and lots of cake; the days out and opportunities to relax; the smiles and the laughter and the hugs; the fleeting conversations and WhatsApp messages; the accessing of school places, the filling of forms, the explanations of things they hadn't understood; the advocacy and trying to improve their situation, even in the places where it felt like it made little difference; the care and concern.
I believe they remembered the gestures that said someone cared about them and they hadn't been entirely forgotten as they waited in a faceless system. I believe they remembered the being there: not all the time, perhaps, not as much as we'd have liked, maybe, but nonetheless, they remembered the times when we were there.
They remembered all the things that often seem so small.
Sometimes I find this hard to remember but sometimes I very much know it to be true ... Sometimes the little things are actually the big things. And I have to keep believing that those little things, they really matter.
