ROUGH sleeping is common among people who have been refused asylum in the UK, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, a new report from the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) UK says.
The report, published on Tuesday, is based on 113 anonymous surveys of people who had at some point exhausted their appeal rights, and were supported by JRS UK between September and November 2023. A minority were in receipt of asylum support, having submitted a fresh asylum claim. The research was conducted by means of multiple-choice questions, and interviews about individuals’ experiences.
Respondents generally had no choice where they stayed, and were forced to accept accommodation where they could, an these included unsafe and exploitative situations in the informal renting market, the report says. About 20 per cent of respondents did not feel physically safe around other residents.
The report also concludes that “Home Office accommodation itself is very poor, and often feels physically unsafe.”
Destitution was found to have wide-reaching negative affects on well-being, including the difficulty of regulating medication. “Hosting and housing schemes had exponentially improved the ability to manage health conditions for some respondents.”
Long-term destitution in the context of asylum is, the report says, “very detrimental to mental health. Respondents reported anxiety, chronic sleep deprivation, and suicidal ideation.”
Related to this, “the experience of asylum destitution has a profound overall impact on sense of self. It marginalises people and denies them privacy, stability, and dignity. Consequently, it is dehumanising.”
In a foreword, a former asylum-seeker, Joyce, writes that, since being entered into the UK asylum system a few years ago, she had “stayed in 15 or 16 places”, and had slept on the streets.
“When you don’t have a place to lay your head, then you cannot think straight. People would think I had serious mental illness, but I was just losing my balance because I did not have a stable and safe place.
“For women, it can be even worse, because some men take advantage of them because they are vulnerable. They sometimes end up forcing themselves into relationships they don’t want to be in so they have a roof over their heads.
“When you are on the streets, you cannot eat when or what you want, you cannot follow your medical treatment precisely, you can’t shower, you can’t wash your clothes and dress properly. You can just drop dead any time when you don’t have accommodation. Everyone needs somewhere to rest and feel safe.”
JRS UK is calling on the new Government to end hostile-environment policy, which, it says, “intentionally builds barriers to essential services, bringing immigration enforcement into every sphere of life”.
It also calls on the Government to end the rule of “no recourse to public funds” for asylum-seekers; to lift the ban on asylum-seekers’ being employed; and to create a “simplified route to settled status” for people living in the UK in the long term.
Other recommendations are: to extend the move-on period for newly recognised refugees to at least 56 days from receiving a residence permit, to prevent “rapid evictions”; to repeal the Illegal Immigration Act; to widen eligibility for homelessness support; and to protect the data of people entering the asylum system.
The director of JRS UK, Sarah Teather, said on Tuesday: “The reality . . . is horrifying. People who sought safety here are plunged into homelessness and danger, left vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and life-threatening illness. This is not new. Some people we work with have lived like this for decades, as an intentional consequence of successive governments’ policies. This must, finally, stop.
“The Government has an opportunity to take a new approach. It must now end the Hostile Environment and enforced destitution.”
The author of the report, Dr Sophie Cartwright, said: “The enforced destitution of people refused asylum is shameful. People who just wanted to be safe are pushed, by government policy, to the very edges of society. They have no safe way to meet their basic needs, and no home. They regularly have nowhere they can rest or go just to feel secure.
“This is not human. It’s not who we are. If any of us were forced to leave our home, we would all want somewhere to be safe. We would all want a chance to rebuild our lives. It’s time to make that happen.”