634% homelessness surge from people leaving asylum hotels
The number of asylum seekers that councils have helped due to homelessness after eviction from Home Office hotels has increased by 634% over two years.
The Home Office says it is committed to ensuring asylum claims are decided without unnecessary delays on an individual, objective, and impartial basis. To this end, it is working with local authorities like ‘Your Waverley’ and Guildford Council to manage the impact of asylum decisions.
In other words, to house them.
Currently, Waverley has well over 1,000 people awaiting council accommodation. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most individuals don’t even consider putting themselves on the housing list, as they realise they have little or no chance of ever receiving a council property.
Statutory homelessness figures for England published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities show that between October and December 2023, the number of people entitled to “a prevention duty after being required to leave Home Office asylum accommodation” was 1,830, while 5,140 received a relief duty.
For the same autumn period in 2022, 1,730 sought either prevention or relief duty; in 2021, it was 950.
The Home Office has been pressured to deal with the backlog of asylum cases and reduce hotel spending for those awaiting decisions.
Last summer, the Home Office changed how it calculated the time people had to move out of their accommodation. Now, it calculates the time after they receive their decision letter instead of when they receive a biometric residence permit. Sometimes, this leaves people with as little as a week to find new housing.
Charities and local authorities warned that this approach risked making more people homeless. In January, the Home Office reversed its decision, and people now have 28 days from receiving their biometric residence permit.
Some useful links.