G4S and asylum seekers’ housing
February 4, 2012 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Below we reproduce a letter signed by academics in the Yorkshire region expressing concerns over the awarding of a housing contract to a private company.
As researchers and university teachers in the fields of housing and immigration in the Yorkshire region we oppose the plans of the Coalition government, through the UK Border Agency (UKBA), to award national contracts of around £135 million for managing asylum seeker social housing to the three multinational security companies who manage most immigration detention centres, and forcible deportations in the UK; G4S, Serco, and Reliance.
In Yorkshire the preferred bidder is G4S and the UKBA is at present checking ‘due diligence’ matters before contracts are signed at the end of February. G4S is not of course a social landlord.
G4S are perhaps known to many people in Yorkshire as the firm who read gas and electricity meters, empty cash machines, and through their ‘events arm’ in Sheffield police local sporting and other events.
In fact they are the world’s largest private security firm – they have been responsible for ’security’ at Doncaster airport but also responsible for ’security’ at Baghdad airport, and for guarding diplomats at Kabul airport and throughout Afghanistan. They have been awarded a contract worth £100 million for the London Olympics running security inside the Olympic park providing 10,000 guards to patrol venues. G4S have a close link to police and prisons. In 2011 they managed 675 court and police station cells, four detention centres for asylum seekers and since the summer of 2011 they manage the brand new Cedars ‘family friendly’ detention centre which is called a ‘pre-departure accommodation centre’ in Pease Pottage where families are forcibly held for up to a week prior to enforced removal by the UKBA.
UKBA maintain that the new asylum social housing contracts are being awarded to partners with a proven track record. In the case of G4S they lost the contract to supply escorts in forcible deportations after the death of an Angolan deportee – three G4S guards face criminal charges and the company may yet face corporate manslaughter charges. In 2010 there were a record 773 complaints lodged against G4S by detainees including 48 claims of assault. Three complaints of assault and two of racism were upheld. G4S were allowed to investigate themselves under UKBA ’scrutiny’.
G4S remarkably claim that they will ‘improve cohesion’ by managing the contracts. Asylum seeker tenants already feel intimidated and threatened by the prospect of prison guard companies being installed as their managing landlords. Asylum seekers in social housing are fleeing from persecution and violence and are only allowed tenancies if they are in the process of applying for or appealing cases for sanctuary. They are not ‘criminals’ who deserve prison guards as their landlords but families and individuals claiming their rights under international treaties signed by the UK on our behalf.
The new contracts will mean the privatisation of the whole of social housing available to asylum seekers. Local authorities in Yorkshire still have a large role in delivering contracts and asylum seekers throughout the region prefer their experience with councils and housing associations compared to the performance of private landlord companies already providing some housing. If the councils lose the contracts it will mean hundreds of families dispersed to private landlords often miles away from childrens’ schools or family doctors.
G4S the proposed private managing landlord in Yorkshire are a mega international corporation – the second largest private employer in the world and the largest employer quoted on the British Stock Exchange. They already (2011) have British government contracts worth around £600 million. G4S chief executive Nick Buckles, according to the Annual Report, gets an annual salary and shares worth £2.4 million and a possible annual bonus of £1.2 million. His pension pot is at present worth £7 million. We believe few people in Yorkshire if they were told would believe their taxpayers money should be awarded to such a company to manage asylum seeker housing.
* John Grayson – Independent Researcher, AdEd Knowledge Company and Sheffield Hallam University
* Dr Quintin Bradley – Associate Senior Lecturer, Housing Studies, School of the Built Environment & Engineering Leeds Metropolitan University
* Julia Brooke – PhD student, Human and Health Sciences, The University of Huddersfield
* Dr Rionach Casey – Senior Lecturer in Housing Studies, Sheffield Hallam University
* Dr Cristina Cerulli – Lecturer School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
* Charlie Cooper – Senior Lecturer, Hull University
* Professor Gary Craig – Professor of Community Development and Social Justice, Centre for Social Justice and Community Action, University of Durham
* Rachael Dobson – Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds
* Dr Max Farrar – Emeritus Professor, Leeds Metropolitan University
* Jenny Fortune – Senior Lecturer Architecture and Planning, Sheffield Hallam University
* Dr David Haigh – Senior Lecturer Planning, Housing and Human Geography, Faculty of Arts, Environment and Technology, Leeds Metropolitan University
* Professor Malcolm Harrison – Emeritus Professor Housing and Social Policy, University of Leeds
* Dr Stuart Hodkinson – School of Geography, University of Leeds
* Professor Caroline Hunter – York Law School, University of York
* Professor Adele Jones – Professor of Childhood Studies, University of Huddersfield
* Martin Jones – Lecturer in International Human Rights Law, Centre for Applied Human Rights and the York Law School, University of York
* Dr Florian Kossak – Lecturer,School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
* Dr Hannah Lewis – Research Fellow, School of Geography, University of Leeds
* Dr Simon Parker – Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of York, Coordinator End Child Detention Now
* Professor Doina Petrescu – Head of Graduate programme, School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
* Jane Petrie – Lecturer in Housing Law, Sheffield Hallam University
* Dr Kesia Reeve – Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University
* Professor Flora Samuel – Head of School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
* Dr Tatjana Schneider – Senior Lecturer School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
* Ala Sirriyeh – Lecturer in Sociology, School of Social and International Studies, University of Bradford
* Kate Smith – PhD student, Human and Health Sciences, The University of Huddersfield
* Professor Fionn Stevenson – School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
* Dr Louise Waite – Senior Lecturer in Human Geography School of Geography, University of Leeds
Migrants and Housing in the UK: Experiences and Impacts
September 6, 2011 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
This briefing reviews the statistical and research evidence on migrants’ experiences in and impacts on the UK housing system. The determinants of migrants’ experiences in and impacts on the UK housing system include many factors such as migrants’ characteristics (e.g. age, income level, type of visa, time in the UK), preferences (e.g. household size, renting versus owning, minimum acceptable level of quality of accommodation) and restrictions of access to social housing. Therefore, different types of migrants, with different rights, opportunities and resources are likely to have very different experiences in and impacts on the UK housing system.
Please follow this link to read the briefing paper in full: http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/migobs/Briefing%20-%20Migrants%20and%20Housing%20in%20the%20UK.pdf
Drastic cuts to asylum housing budget
April 11, 2011 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
A freedom of information request made by Inside Housing has forced the UKBA to reveal a plan to cut £30m from its housing budget for asylum seekers in the coming year.
Asylum housing budget slashed by almost £30m
April 9, 2011 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The UK Border Agency is to slash the amount of money it spends on providing housing for asylum seekers by 17 per cent next year.
The UKBA was forced to reveal its plans following a freedom of information request submitted by Inside Housing. The agency’s provisional spending on accommodation in 2010/11 is £164 million. Its budget for 2011/12 is £135.5 million.
A home away from home
March 16, 2011 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Refugees in Glasgow are taking their first step towards a settled life in Scotland thanks to a special partnership between the Scottish Refugee Council and local housing associations. Clare Harris explains how.
When Glaucio Guine arrived in the UK in summer 2009, he wasn’t sure what his future held. After fleeing conflict-ravaged Angola, in south central Africa, his immediate aim was to find a place where he would be safe.
The 30-year-old’s journey as a refugee in the UK began in Leeds, where he was housed in a UK Border Agency hostel while his claim for asylum was processed. On his own in a foreign land, he decided to move to Glasgow to stay with friends in the city’s diverse west end, which has a high population of people from refugee backgrounds. Around five months after he arrived in the UK, the Home Office accepted his claim for asylum and he was granted permission to stay as a refugee.
Source: Inside Housing
Uncertain future for Glasgow asylum seekers
March 8, 2011 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The transfer of services for asylum seekers from Glasgow City Council to Ypeople, a private provider of housing and support, has been marked by the reticence of Ypeople to submit to legal requirements over the transfer of staff.
Source: Herald Scotland
Glasgow housing contract termination delayed
January 31, 2011 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
UKBA has extended Glasgow city council’s contract to house dispersed asylum seekers. The contract was due to be terminated on 2 February.
Source: Inside Housing
Second exodus may add to plight of UK refugees
January 15, 2011 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
This article was first published 14 January 2011 (Ekklesia)
By Annabel Turner
More than two months have passed since the government announced that the budget for social housing would be cut by more than 50 percent, making it one of the worst affected areas under the coalition’s Spending Review. As many of the UK’s 280,000 refugees and asylum seekers are living in social housing at present.
4.5 million people already on the waiting list for social housing will initially bear the brunt of the cuts to housing benefits, being expected to pay up to 80 per cent of market rental rates.
The idea is to create revenue for 150,000 new and ‘affordable’ social homes – meaning that the poor are to pay for the poor. And the plans to lower the cap on housing benefits will price many out of the UK’s affordable housing schemes altogether, particularly in central London. The push for social housing to be ‘temporary’ and ’short term’ will mean that all social housing tenants remain in vulnerable circumstances until they are forced to find alternative, private accommodation. The plans in their entirety can only be viewed as a reverse of the UK’s previous social housing scheme.
The effective social cleansing of London seems imminent. As these plans are implemented over the next five years, the poor will inevitably be priced out of central London and into the suburbs. At the same time, the push for private investment in the UK is being vehemently encouraged, a move that will place London’s already unaffordable housing far from reach.
Along with almost every local government across the UK, London Mayor Boris Johnson spoke out against these cuts back in October. Consequently, the government has delayed introducing the cap on housing benefits by nine months, now set to begin in January 2012. But this does not reflect an ideological victory for the protestors or even a significant change in the coalition government’s grand designs. It is merely a response to the fears of local governments, especially outer city local governments, who do not have the practical means available to deal with the fall out envisaged by these cuts.
So while in recent weeks, student demonstrations have grabbed the full attention of everyone across the UK, those most cruelly affected by the coalition’s cuts remain in the shadows. According to research carried out by the Citizens Advice Bureau, 18,000 households in London will be affected by these caps over the next four years. The majority of these households are families with children. It is the poor, the young, the elderly, the isolated and the vulnerable that will be most severely affected.
And amongst them will be many refugees. Over the past ten years, tens of thousands of people seeking asylum have arrived in the UK from Iraq and Afghanistan. The UK is also home to many more refugees from Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, Burma and Iran. Almost all the refugees who have arrived to the UK over the past two decades will be affected by the planned changes to social housing.
At present, once an asylum seeker is granted refugee status and indefinite leave to remain in the UK, they receive the same entitlements as all UK citizens with regards to social housing. Individuals can apply for temporary accommodation pending the results of an asylum application, but this must be vacated almost immediately once refugee status has been approved. Refugees must then adhere to the majority rules and register as homeless, join local council waiting lists or seek private accommodation. As with all of the UK’s social housing applications, families with children or dependents are given priority.
The new cuts may well create an exodus of London’s poor from the inner city. If this is so, for the refugees and asylum seekers living in London the plans will create a second exodus. Many will find their housing benefits are reduced, while their rental costs increase beyond their means. Many will be forced to relocate away from where they have only recently founded roots and begun to establish lives. Many asylum seekers who are currently living in hostels and guest houses will be shipped into more remote locations.
Refugees and asylum seekers arriving to the UK have already endured often unimaginable hardships, both during their journey, and since their arrival in the UK. Many have fled from war, violence and persecution. Many are dealing with depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Many become isolated and must overcome language barriers, stigmatism and discrimination.
And this comes against a backdrop of increasing restrictions on refugee and migrant entitlements in the UK. The government has already announced a cap on immigration this year. The £500 million planned reduction in funds to the UK Borders Agency, as well as cuts and changes to Legal Aid will inevitably reduce the level of support services presently provided.
With local governments and communities facing average cuts of around 40 per cent, local organisations working to support refugees and asylum seekers in the UK are soon to be confronted by dramatic reductions to their funding.
Earlier this year the government allowed Refugee and Migrant Justice (RMJ) to fall into administration. This was based on a ‘bureaucratic’ loophole that meant the organisation went into bankruptcy awaiting payments from the Legal Services Commission itself. Since 1992, RMJ has assisted over 110,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the UK and the closure left behind the open cases of more than 10,000 clients. The appeal for short-term assistance with rents so that RMJ could redirect these people towards alternative help was also declined.
In June, the Ministry of Justice announced that asylum seekers would have to pay to appeal against failed asylum applications , making it impossible in most appeal cases.
The Spending Review states they will be “continuing recent tightening of entitlement to support”. To this end, the government plans to remove minors prior to the age of 17, before they have the right to apply for asylum as an adult.
Earlier this year, the UK Borders Agency also announced they will build a £4 million ‘reintegration centre’ in Kabul, with the aim of returning those unsuccessful in their asylum applications to Afghanistan. This came with the news that they plan to forcibly return many of the 4,200 unaccompanied child asylum seekers to Afghanistan through this scheme. The obvious safety and welfare concerns raised by these proposals were voiced by various UK human rights organisations.
In December, Nick Clegg announced that holding the children of failed asylum seekers in immigration detention centres would end completely by May 2011. Following this, Charities raised concerns that detention centres with ’supervised accommodation’ were doing nothing more than re-branding an inhumane policy.
If the UK government is unwilling to take more responsibility for two continuing wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan; if it is not willing to reconsider its role in conflict around the world, especially considering the UK’s arms exports; and if it is so willing to close the door to refugees and asylum seekers who are desperately seeking refuge in the UK then can it be forced to remember those who are already here?
The Coalition’s Spending Review revealed an assault against the UK’s social welfare system as a whole. The unions are joining students and supporting wider protests across the country. However, many of those most brutally affected by the Spending Review are those most unable to speak out against it. Many of the refugees and asylum seekers in the UK literally do not have an English voice to speak out against the challenges they are facing. Among the significant objections to the cuts to social housing, the impact on refugees and asylum seekers must be emphasised. A reminder to this government of its human responsibility to all the refugees and asylum seekers in the UK is urgent.
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© Annabel Turner currently works in a West London based refugee organisation. She holds an MA in International Conflict Studies from King’s College London.
Minister in Glasgow to discuss asylum housing
December 23, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
A UK Government minister was in Glasgow to discuss how to provide for asylum seekers after a contract with the council was scrapped.
David Mundell, Scotland Office Minister, spoke to a Glasgow MP, councillors and those dealing with asylum seekers.
Glasgow Central MP Anas Sarwar invited Mr Mundell to come to Glasgow and speak directly to people in the city, after the 10 year contract came to an abrupt halt.
Asylum seekers were given letters telling them to be ready to leave within three days and to pack only two suitcases.
Source: Evening Times
Glasgow eviction battle continues
December 9, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
(Institute of Race Relations) – The UK Border Agency’s (UKBA) shocking conduct over its proposed evictions in Glasgow needs urgent investigation, says Glasgow housing charity Positive Action in Housing (PAIH) (http://www.paih.org/).
Following the 15 November demonstration against UKBA’s service of eviction notices on 600 asylum-seeking families in Glasgow (read an IRR News story: ‘Asylum-seeking families in Glasgow face imminent move’ (http://www.irr.org.uk/2010/november/ha000035.html)), it was revealed in a leaked letter of 17 November that UKBA officials had not even met the team at Ypeople (YMCA Glasgow’s new name) which was expected to take over a large part of the responsibility for housing 1,300 asylum seekers housed until now by the City Council under a contract worth £13.5million and involving forty council staff jobs. UKBA has set a deadline for the transfer, involving over a thousand properties, of 2 February 2011, but in the letter, Glasgow Social Services Executive Director, David Crawford, expressed serious concern about the short notice, pointing out that the lack of contact from UKBA meant that Ypeople had not been able to start recruiting the additional staff it would need. The organisation currently houses only 9 per cent of asylum seekers in Glasgow, while the Angel Group houses 10 per cent.
Concerns have also been expressed at the decision to transfer asylum seekers to the Angel Group for housing. In September 2010, it emerged that Angel, a company which has made many millions from housing asylum seekers on behalf of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), had moved a disabled asylum seeker six times in the city over a 12-month period, each time to accommodation which was unsuitable for her needs. Helen Bih, a Cameroonian mother of two children, said the repeated moves and the living conditions she had to endure left her ‘wanting to die’. Helen was finally rehoused in suitable accommodation following concerns expressed by organisations including The Unity Centre, Scottish Refugee Council, British Red Cross and the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and a campaign by PAIH. Angel was also the subject of calls for a fatal accident inquiry (FAI) following the death in August 2009 of 23-month-old Afghan Jasraj Singh Kataria, who fell from a third floor window in one of its properties. The group asserted that windows were fitted with locks.
On 20 November, hundreds of asylum seekers, with supporters from PAIH, Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, the Unity Centre, the Church of Scotland and members of Glasgow City Council, gathered outside the Glasgow office of UKBA and burned their eviction letters in protest at the decision to move them. PAIH’s Robina Qureshi said, ‘Our message to the UK Borders Agency is, maybe you can get away with these cruel tactics in the “England region” but not in this country. Scotland has a long history of peaceful protest and standing our ground against inhumanity and injustice.’ She went on to express disappointment at the coalition government’s silence on ‘the dehumanising and heartbreaking mass removal of some of the most vulnerable people in our society’.
Days after the protests, PAIH was told by sources at the City Council that the evictions would not go ahead, as UKBA recognised that its timetable for the transfer was ‘unachievable’, and that negotiations were continuing between UKBA and the Council, Glasgow Housing Association and Ypeople. Then, on 1 December, Scottish minister David Mundell told the Westminster parliament that the eviction letters sent out on 5 November were ‘inappropriate’ and ‘regrettable’. He added that ‘everyone affected will have at least 14 days’ notice if they have to move. Progress has been made. The initial letter was regrettable, but the situation will be better in future.’
PAIH welcomed the U-turn. But celebrations were premature. The next day, 2 December, UKBA began telephoning asylum-seeking families to give them just twenty-four hours’ notice of eviction. One of those who received notice to quit by phone was single mother Namir Rad, whose twin sons are to start at the local high school in the New Year. The news has shocked and upset the family, who have lived in their Maryhill flat for over two years. Namir was already taking medication for anxiety and stress.
These developments led PAIH to call for UKBA’s conduct to be investigated by the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. Its statement pointed out that UKBA ’seems to have learnt nothing from the triple suicide of the Russian family in Glasgow’s Red Road flats in March 2010 after receiving similar letters to quit by the UKBA’. The statement went on, ‘We believe that Glasgow City Council is the best housing and support service for the refugee families. However, if the contract is not going to be reinstated with the Council, then we believe that Glasgow’s registered social Landlords are a safer, more reliable and better regulated alternative to private accommodation providers currently contracted to the UKBA.’
PAIH is calling on supporters to write to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Scottish Children’s Commissioner, as well as to the UK home secretary and immigration minister about UKBA’s behaviour, and to obtain assurances that no more ‘24 hour’ eviction letters will be sent out to the remaining 600 refugee families.
Take action by writing to the people listed below, and copying the letters to [email protected] (mailto: [email protected]).
* Iain Davidson, Chair, Scottish Affairs Select Committee: [email protected] (mailto: [email protected])
* David Mundell MP, Scotland Secretary: [email protected] (mailto: [email protected])
* Tam Baillie, Scottish Children’s Commissioner: [email protected] (mailto: [email protected])
* First Minister Alex Salmond, [email protected] (mailto: [email protected])
* Damien Green, Immigration Minister: [email protected] (mailto: [email protected])
* Phil Taylor, Head, UKBA Scotland: [email protected] (mailto: [email protected])
* Theresa May, Home Secretary: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Or write to your MSP, MP and MEP. To find out who your rep is, enter your postcode in www.writetothem.com (http://www.writetothem.com/)
HAT News is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.
RELATED LINKS
Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees (http://www.gctwr.co.uk/dnn/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx)
The Unity Centre (http://unitycentreglasgow.org/)
Scottish Refugee Council (http://www.scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk/)
Red Cross (http://www.redcross.org.uk/)
The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (MF) (http://www.torturecare.org.uk/)
