New report reveals barriers faced by newly-recognised refugees in the UK

A new report co-authored by SOAS University of London’s Dr Anna Lindley and Asylum Welcome, an Oxfordshire-based charity, sheds light on the significant barriers newly-recognised refugees face when trying to establish a new life in the UK. The report has been published today.

Dr Anna Lindley, a leading researcher in global migration and displacement dynamics, has worked extensively with Asylum Welcome to map out the challenges encountered by refugees looking for housing. During the collaboration Dr Lindley also worked as part of the outreach team in an asylum hotel in Oxford, gaining firsthand insight into the issues at hand. 

The report highlights the short 28-day period that people have between being granted refugee status and having to leave asylum accommodation. The enormous relief of being recognised as a refugee is rapidly overtaken by the stress of having to find a new place to live. In the context of the UK’s on-going housing crisis, few succeed in moving directly into private rented housing, and many experience some form of homelessness. As one interviewee said, 'people think refugee status gives you wings, but it doesn't even give you arms.' 

Key findings of the report

• Home office neglect: The failure to co-ordinate effectively with local authorities and the charitable sector as refugees transition from asylum accommodation into mainstream systems. 
• Housing crisis impact: The difficulty of finding stable and affordable housing in a market already strained by long-term national shortages and marked by discrimination.
• Time constraints: The 28-day period given to a person after they receive refugee status and before they are evicted from Home Office accommodation is too short to set up the essentials of a new life and give people a realistic opportunity to avoid homelessness.  
• Support challenges: Insufficient bureaucratic capacity and financial backing for homelessness prevention; lack of timely access to universal credit, language training and meaningful employment support; over-stretched charitable sector struggling to fill the gaps. 

The report offers a series of recommendations aimed at improving the support systems for refugees during this critical transition period. These recommendations include providing asylum seekers with more English language provision and the right to work, and, crucially, increasing the move-on period from 28 to at least 56 days, as well as giving greater priority to addressing the housing crisis affecting so many people across the UK. 

Dr Lindley said: "The period after getting refugee status should be one where people start a new phase of life in the UK in a positive way. Instead, it is too often a period of precarity, homelessness and enormous stress. This is entirely counter-productive and undermines longer-term integration."

Dr Hari Reed, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator at Asylum Welcome, said: "Currently, without intensive support from the third sector, newly-recognised refugees in Oxford would fall out of asylum accommodation and into street homelessness. These are people who we accept have fled violence and persecution – they require protection, not punishment."

Header image photo credits: Ross Sneddon via Unsplash.