GLASGOW’S call for a pause on asylum seekers being sent to the city will do “more harm than good”, according to a top refugee charity.
The Scottish Refugee City has hit back after Scotland’s largest local authority said it was struggling to cope with the number of asylum seekers who were sent there.
Glasgow is the UK’s most significant “dispersal centre” for asylum seekers outside of parts of London and council bosses have said the numbers are putting a strain on its already stretched resources, especially in housing.
They have demanded that the Home Office, responsible for UK migration policy, stop sending asylum seekers to the city, warning the city is approaching a "crisis point".
But Sabir Zazai (below), the chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council said that the city must find an alternative solution which including continuing to welcome asylum seekers.
He said: “We believe that any decision by Glasgow to pause receiving people seeking asylum in the city would do more harm than good, and potentially lead to a rise in people sleeping on the streets.
“We don’t know how long a ‘pause’ Glasgow is seeking or what conditions the council would need to see met in order to restart welcoming people. There is currently no clarity around what the benefits of a decision like this would be.”
Zazai argued that migration had brought many benefits to the city, adding: “Local areas have benefitted from new businesses, cultures, skills and expertise. Having supported refugees in Scotland for 40 years, we have seen first-hand how Glasgow and other parts of the country evolved to embrace people rebuilding their lives here. We don’t want to lose that progress.”
And he said that his organisation understood the pressures facing councils, which he said were mirrored in the Scottish Refugee Council’s work.
Zazai added: “Homelessness and housing make up a quarter of the calls to our helpline.”
However, the charity boss said that these pressures were not caused by the “people themselves” but rather by “bad political decisions” – the responsibility for which lay both with local and central government.
He added: “Glasgow and other cities declared a housing emergency several years ago, yet the chronic lack of social housing in the city remains inadequately addressed.
“Hundreds of people, many of whom have been traumatised by the asylum process, are still living in unsuitable temporary accommodation with no path to somewhere safe and settled to live.
“The UK Government fails to meaningfully engage on this issue, despite a clear and pressing need for action. The current asylum system creates social and economic barriers for people trying to rebuild their lives.
“It does not allow people to provide for themselves and their families, and it does not recognise the vital role that local communities play in supporting people. A piecemeal approach to problems and no desire to fundamentally improve an inhumane and ineffective asylum system is what has led us to this point.”
Zazai said that a “failure to protect vulnerable people at risk of homelessness” would be a “devastating dereliction of duty for all government officials”, adding: “We hope that an alternative solution is given the attention that it is urgently required.”
Allan Casey, Glasgow City Council's convenor for homelessness, said the Scottish Refugee Council was "absolutely correct" that asylum seekers "deserve somewhere safe and settled to call home" but added that the lack of support from the UK Government would result in a "breakdown" in the city's support systems.
He said: "Glasgow has repeatedly stressed to UK ministers that their batch processing of asylum decisions is putting our housing supply and homelessness services under immense strain. We’ve made clear that unless they financially support the impact of their changes then we would soon reach crisis point.
“During the time when we’ve made these appeals, the numbers of refugees presenting in Glasgow has continued to rise while no support from UK ministers has materialised. Indeed, while we’ve made repeated efforts to engage positively with the relevant UK Government ministers, they have refused to meet with us."
He said the problems the city faced were not "caused by refugees" but by UK Government policy, adding: "The reality is that the unsupported rise in demand is placing our systems under unprecedented pressure.
"This situation cannot continue, not least for those seeking accommodation in Glasgow, wherever they may come from. If UK Government ministers want Glasgow to continue being the exemplar in cohesion and integration which we’re proud to be then they need to step up and better support us. Our support to refugees and asylum seekers remains steadfast.”
