Why are there so many refugees sleeping on the streets? That is a question that more and more people are asking me. Rough sleeping is on the rise among refugees in the capital and it is an issue that is often strikingly visible.
Earlier this month, the Standard reported on refugees who’d set up “tents and makeshift kitchens” in the shadow of London’s square mile “in an image that could have been ripped straight from a Dickens novel”.
They are banned from working while they wait for the government to process their application for asylum.
And it can take years for the government to process an asylum application. Even refugees who come to the UK with skills that we need – doctors, nurses, carers – are banned from putting those skills to good use.
This seems to be an extraordinary own goal on our part. Analysis by the London School of Economics estimates that allowing people in the asylum system to work sooner could result in a net benefit of £1.2 billion to the UK economy over five years, driven by tax revenue, reduced public spending, and improved self-reliance among refugees.
Instead of unlocking this potential, our asylum system increasingly traps refugees in a cycle of homelessness. It’s not only the ban on working. This ban is compounded by the speed at which refugees are required to leave their asylum accommodation once they are granted permission to stay in the UK. Unlike renters who are given 2 months notice to find new accommodation at the end of a contract, refugees get just 28 days.
Bearing in mind that they haven’t been allowed to work, they will also need to find a job within those 28 days before a landlord will even consider renting to them. And even if they do manage to find a job within 28 days, they will need to arrange an advance on their pay given that renting also typically requires you to pay a deposit and the first month’s rent before you move in.
If getting hired, negotiating an advance on your salary, and getting a rental application approved within 28 days sounds like a steep ask, it’s because it is. In our experience at the Refugee Council, it isn’t rare for a refugee to be made homeless; it’s rare for a refugee not to face homelessness. In other words, it’s not just that this system isn’t working well, it’s that it’s failing – and failing on a spectacular level at great cost to the taxpayer.
Even with our housing and employment experts putting refugees in touch with employers and landlords, we’re finding that we can’t always help refugees find a roof over their heads within the time limit.
And for refugees, there is typically no support network of family and friends to fall back on when they reach the 28-day cut off.
This may sound familiar to those who rent in the capital. That sinking feeling in the pit of one’s stomach when you get that message from your landlord: they’re selling; they’re turning the property into an Airbnb; the rent is going up and you just can’t afford the increase.
Or perhaps you’ve had that phone call from your son or daughter telling you they’re coming home to live with you because they can’t find anywhere to rent, or they simply can’t afford it any longer.
While this obviously points to huge problems in our rental system, it also points to the vital support role that friends and family play in mitigating the most severe effects of the UK’s rental crisis. It’s precisely this support that refugees are missing.
Refugees cannot go back to their family homes. Their parents, their friends – everyone they could depend on – may be missing or dead. They have no one to fall back on.
To exclude people in such precarious positions from the job market and then give them half as much time as the rest of us to find somewhere to rent feels counterintuitive. We’re setting refugees up to fail.
This means the rest of us lose out, too. Refugees might be incredibly vulnerable in some ways, but they’re also people who against all the odds, and by sheer force of will, have made their way across continents from warzones to safety.
Fundamentally, refugees are not people who like to sit around and do nothing. They are determined. They are resourceful. They want to stand on their own two feet to make the most of the life that was so nearly snatched from them.
They are doctors and nurses, engineers and computer scientists. They are people with a huge amount to give to Britain, and they want to do just that.
If we want refugees play a part in Britain, to contribute to our communities and rebuild purposeful lives, then we need to give them a fair shot. That’s why we are backing the Evening Standard’s campaign to give them the right to work, and to reform a broken system that traps them in homelessness by doubling the time refugees are given to move into independence.
Enver Solomon is CEO of The Refugee Council, one of the organisations supported by our winter appeal.
In a Nutshell
Our Winter Appeal, A Place to Call Home, in partnership with Comic Relief, is seeking to help fund organisations in London and across the country that support asylum seekers and people experiencing homelessness.
How you can help
£10 could provide a young person travel to meet a wellbeing mentor and have a hot meal
£50 could provide travel to work or school for a month for an at-risk youth
£150 could refurbish a bike for an adult refugee giving them freedom to travel independently
£500 could train ten people with experience of homelessness to become homeless health advocates £1,000 could enable one of our partners to fully support a young person throughout the year
To make a donation visit: comicrelief.com/winter
