Report warns Home Office asylum policy fuels homelessness - Housing Digital

Councils and charities are preventing refugee rough sleeping through good practice, but Home Office policy is undermining their efforts, a new report has found.

The report, published by NACCOM and Homeless Link, highlights how local authorities are working with voluntary organisations to prevent homelessness among refugees by providing early information and support around housing, benefits, English language learning and employment before and after an asylum decision is made.

However, the report warns that national asylum policies are working against this local good practice. It cites the 42-day asylum move-on period, the new “core protection” model, rules preventing people from working while awaiting a decision on their claim, and refugee status being made temporary and subject to review every 30 months, as measures undermining the government’s ambition to end rough sleeping.

Bridget Young, director of NACCOM, said: “Being granted refugee status should be a moment of safety and relief. Instead, too many people are being pushed onto the streets within weeks of receiving protection. Our report shows it doesn’t have to be this way.”

To address the issues, the report sets out principles for practice for local authorities and their partners, alongside recommendations for national government, aimed at helping areas replicate successful local initiatives within a supported national framework.

The principles cover four areas: preparation and support while people are in asylum accommodation; post-decision navigation, including drop-ins to resolve issues such as eVisas and National Insurance numbers; housing and homelessness support for those not in priority need; and partnership working and internal coordination between local authorities, the voluntary sector and other agencies.

Its recommendations for national government include permanently extending the move-on period to at least 56 days from receipt of all essential documentation, providing a single translated decision communication, creating automatic local authority notifications when people are placed in asylum accommodation and when decisions are made, and including the Home Office in the Duty to Refer and Duty to Collaborate.

The report also calls on the government to give people seeking asylum the right to work after six months, expand ESOL provision, increase social housing supply, unfreeze Local Housing Allowance, lift the benefit cap, scrap the shared accommodation rate for under-35s, and fund local areas properly through multi-year support.

Young added: “Across the country, councils and voluntary organisations are doing remarkable work to stop refugees ending up homeless. They are preparing people while they are still in asylum accommodation, providing proactive housing support as soon as a decision arrives, and helping people gain the training, skills and experience they need to find work.

“The prime minister has rightly made ending rough sleeping his first priority. To meet that goal, the government must stem the flow of homelessness from the asylum system. That means learning from this local practice and backing it with the changes only national government can make: a longer move-on period for everyone receiving a decision on an asylum claim, clear communication and notification when decisions are made, the right to work for people seeking asylum, and proper funding for the local services already proving what works.”

Rick Henderson, chief executive of Homeless Link, the national membership body for frontline homelessness services, said: “It is astounding that with so much at stake for people’s lives and our communities, the government is not working in a collaborative and coordinated way, but instead continues to produce policies that are creating predictable routes to rough sleeping and destitution among refugees, undermining its own rough sleeping ambitions.

“However, our new report shows that there is much that can be done to ensure that refugees can put down roots, find work and contribute to local communities. Pockets of local good practice demonstrate that by partnership working, acting early and helping people access housing, benefits, English language learning and employment support, homelessness can be prevented.

“Now these local areas need support at a national level, and we are calling on government to act upon our recommendations for change so that refugees receive the support they need and the government’s drive to end rough sleeping can be realised.”

Image credit: Roman Bodnarchuk – Shutterstock

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