London landlords are being encouraged to give up spare rooms to help keep refugees off the streets after being evicted from asylum hotels.
In some London homelessness shelters, every guest has been a refugee recently granted status and made to leave asylum accommodation at short notice, said Jacob Dimitriou, England director of Housing Justice, one of the organisations behind the scheme. At least half of the bed spaces available in the capital are being used by asylum accommodation leavers, he added.
As the Home Office’s drive to clear the backlog forces refugees onto the streets in vast numbers, London boroughs are making use of existing funding from Michael Gove’s department, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, for a new lodging scheme to deal with the impact.
“We’re absolutely clear that this is going to be a good solution for some people, but we’re talking nowhere near the numbers we have been seeing so far, and we’ll continue to see through the winter,” Dimitriou told The Big Issue.
“For some people it’s going to represent a good stepping stone to their settlement into British society.
“Good stable relationships can really support a person to progress away from homelessness.”