The Home Office is under intensifying pressure to help house more than 1,400 refugees who face homelessness in Glasgow owing to its rush to clear a significant backlog in asylum claims.
Lawyers acting for refugees in Glasgow have warned that the city council and the Scottish and UK governments face legal action and compensation claims if they fail to provide enough housing for people being granted the legal right to live in the UK.
The Scottish Refugee Council said that without sufficient housing there would be “escalating street homelessness” this winter, putting people at risk of exploitation and potential loss of life. “The perversity of all this is that for those granted refugee status, this should be a time of relief, hope and joy; not of torment and homelessness,” said Graham O’Neill, the SRC’s policy officer.
Glasgow city council expects that more than 1,400 refugees will be suddenly made homeless in the city later this year because of a Home Office decision to speed up the asylum backlog, emptying more than 50 hotels of applicants.
Glasgow officials estimate that surge in cases could immediately cost the city, which is home to the largest concentration of asylum seekers in the UK, about £26m extra in emergency housing costs and up to £54m over the following year.
The city has already rehoused three refugees it had initially denied emergency housing after Govan Law Centre filed court papers earlier this month accusing it of breaching its statutory duties. In all three cases, they had lost their Home Office-funded housing after winning the right to stay, leaving them sleeping rough.
Once an asylum seeker wins leave to remain, they have to vacate their state-funded accommodation, often hotels or B&Bs, and find their own housing. Although refugees are immediately eligible for universal credit, it takes weeks for their claims to be processed.
Mike Dailly, the solicitor advocate at Govan Law Centre, who brought those cases, said he was preparing to file further legal challenges, potentially under the Human Rights Act, if the council refused to house other refugees made homeless after they received the right to stay.
Although the Scottish parliament had strengthened legal rights for homeless people, allowing more people to claim support than in the rest of the UK, he said funding cuts had forced councils such as Glasgow to reduce spending on homelessness.
Glasgow has lobbied Home Office and Scottish ministers to help share the expected costs. Susan Aitken, the council leader, and Allan Casey, the council’s homelessness convenor, held talks with Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, and other council leaders on Thursday morning.
“Although no commitment was made to provide resources to mitigate the imminent impact of [these] changes, it was recognised that the city faces particular challenges,” a council spokesperson said. “The council will continue to strongly make the case for financial support.”
Paul McLennan, the Scottish housing minister, also urged the Home Office to share these housing costs, arguing that the UK government was solely to blame for the crisis. The Scottish government had already offered social landlords across Scotland £60m to buy extra temporary housing and was trying to help councils find it, he said.
“It is completely unacceptable for the UK government to significantly increase pressure on local authorities without providing any financial support for people to move on from asylum accommodation,” he said.
Wafa Shaheen, the Scottish Refugee Council’s head of asylum, said the number of refugees seeking its help had doubled over the last month. “But there is no doubling in the number of flats or houses available for people,” she said.
“It’s unrealistic, unreasonable and almost designed to set people up to fail, particularly in the middle of a chronic housing shortage and cost of living crisis.”
A Home Office spokesperson said it encouraged applicants to plan for the next steps as soon as they got a decision.
“While we offer ample support once claims have been granted through [the refugee charity] Migrant Help, access to the labour market and advice on applying for universal credit, homelessness in Scotland is ultimately a devolved matter for the Scottish government.”
