UK asylum seekers living in `squalid, unsafe slum conditions`

Source: , 27/10/2017

Asylum seekers arriving in the UK are forced to live in `squalid,
unsafe, slum housing conditions` and the public is largely unaware of
the conditions into which `traumatised people are routinely dumped`,
charities have said.

The £600m government contract to provide
shelter for those seeking sanctuary in the UK goes up for tender next
month as calls mount for for urgent reforms.

Testimonies from
asylum seekers and frontline workers detail accommodation that is
infested with vermin, insecure, damp and dirty. One woman in Greater
Manchester described how she was forced to stay in the same house even
after her newborn baby was covered with bites from bed
bugs.

Another asylum seeker in Greater Manchester told of a
sink pedestal that crashed though the ceiling into the area where she
was living with her three children. Another in Merseyside shared
images of her bedroom after the ceiling had collapsed for the second
time in six months.

Charities also told the Guardian that women
who had been trafficked had been put in housing with internal and
external doors that did not lock securely. `You`re talking about
people who have potentially been raped, sexually assaulted, tortured,
not being able to lock their front door,` said Christina Bodenes from
MRANG, a Merseyside charity that provides support to women their
children seeking asylum. `It`s just a completely unacceptable
situation.`

Responsibility for housing people seeking asylum in
the UK was taken away from local authorities in 2012 and given to the
companies Serco, G4S and Clearsprings, through contracts known as
Compass.

The vast majority of asylum seekers are housed by G4S
and Serco in the poorest parts of the country where housing is
comparatively cheap. G4S holds Compass contracts for the north-east,
Yorkshire and the Humber, the Midlands and the east of England, where
45% of the UK`s asylum seekers live.

Maurice Wren, the chief
executive of the Refugee Council, said: `All too often, people seeking
asylum in the UK are forced to live in squalid, unsafe, slum housing
conditions, at exorbitant cost to the public purse.

`Though the
general public is largely unaware of the appalling conditions into
which traumatised people are routinely dumped, ministers and officials
are not, yet this scandal continues unchecked. The time has come to
end this shameful practice and allow people seeking asylum to live in
dignity.`

David Simmonds, the chair of the Local Government
Association`s asylum, refugee and migration taskforce, said councils
regularly complained that they had little power to tackle the
`generally unacceptable` standard of accommodation for asylum seekers
in their areas, because the private contractors` contracts are with
the Home Office.

`The accommodation will always be at the
lowest end of the market, because to win the contract the providers
bid at the lowest possible price,` he said. `But vermin infestations
and damp are things that would stop a local authority from considering
that accommodation for placing UK homeless families. That same minimum
standard should apply consistently.`

Graham O`Neill of the
Scottish Refugee Council said asylum-seeker housing was a vital public
service, `housing for a group of people who really need the stability
and the privacy that a safe home and a safe space can bring`. It is
`publicly funded and yet local authorities and devolved governments
have no ability to hold these providers to account`, he
said.

The north-west town has a higher concentration of asylum
seekers than anywhere in England. Locals have been both generous and
furious

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Asylum seekers do not have
permission to work while awaiting a decision on their claim. Under the
Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 they are able to apply for
accommodation and financial help from the Home Office if they have no
other means of supporting themselves.

Armed conflict and
political instability in the Middle East and Africa have caused the
number of people housed under the act to jump sharply during the life
of the Compass contracts, from about 25,000 to 40,000 at the end of
last year.

MPs on the home affairs select committee heard
evidence last year that G4S and Serco were losing money on the Compass
contracts, in part because of the increase in the number of asylum
seekers and the rising cost of rents. Serco`s average monthly income
per service user was about £300 in February 2016, compared with an
average cost of around £450.

An asylum seeker`s room in Greater
Manchester where a sink pedestal fell through the ceiling.

The
committee published a report in January that said the government
should act immediately to improve conditions. Ten months later,
charities say there has been little improvement and the government is
yet to respond to the findings.

It has said the previous month
that the current Compass contracts would be extended for two years
until August 2019. Contracts to provide asylum seeker accommodation
from September 2019 until 2024 will be put out to tender in
November.

A Home Office spokesperson said the ministry worked
closely with contractors to ensure they provided accommodation that
was `safe, habitable, fit for purpose and adequately equipped`, and
that it investigated all complaints relating to sub-standard
accommodation.

John Whitwam, G4S`s head of immigration and
borders, said the standard of accommodation provided to asylum seekers
was `subject to prescriptive criteria`, and that any failure to meet
those criteria would result in a contract penalty.

`Since
November 2013, we have not been subject to any performance penalties
on the basis that we rectify many tens of thousands of defects each
year to meet the required standard,` he said. `We continue to invest
in our provision, despite heavy commercial losses.`

Scott Ross,
Serco`s operations director, said the company was committed to
ensuring they provided `decent and safe accommodation` for the 16,000
asylum seekers in its care, and that they met all of their contractual
obligations.

`We are absolutely confident that the asylum
seekers we look after are in housing of a decent standard, and where
repairs are required to the 5,000 properties that we manage, these are
completed in accordance with the strict timescales of our contract
with the Home Office,` he said.

`This house is
awful`

When Maria - not her real name - fled her home in South
America because she faced imprisonment without trial for protesting
against the government, she was pregnant and homeless. Now her
daughter is eight and they have been living in her current home for
five years, but the property is still is barely
habitable.

Maria says the accommodation in Leeds has got worse
since G4S took over the contract. Her house is so riddled with mice
that she and her daughter are forced to sleep with the lights on to
stop them coming into their bedrooms.

`It`s not just the
quality of the house I`m in, but the service has got worse,` she says.
`I`m excited to move out of this house, but I already feel so sorry
for the next family they are going to bring here. This house is
awful.`

Another asylum seeker living in Greater Manchester
said she was scared for the safety of her children, all under ten,
after a sink pedestal fell through the ceiling of her living room in
mid-July. `My daughter and son played in the same place [where the
pedestal fell]. I was really scared,` she said. `When I go to sleep I
think what could have happened.`