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<h1><span style="color: #0c3951;">Destitution</span></h1><p><span style="color: rgb(12, 57, 81);">No one should be forced into destitution based on where they are from. </span></p>

Destitution

No one should be forced into destitution based on where they are from.

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Everyone should have the right to live as flourishing members of our society, free to support themselves and access a safety net when they need it. But many of the people we work with at GMIAU have been forced into destitution – including families with children – purely because of their immigration status. This does not happen by accident: with laws banning people from working and policies restricting access to welfare and housing, destitution is a political choice.

No one should be forced into destitution based on where they are from. That means key changes to the immigration and asylum system.

Our asks for government

1. Create a just and humane asylum system, so people fleeing war or persecution aren’t wrongly refused protection.

2. Reduce the costs of visa applications, so people don’t risk falling out of status because they can’t afford the fees.

3. End the use of the ‘no recourse to public funds’ condition, so people unable to work due to health or caring responsibilities can access a basic safety net.

4. For people currently trapped in destitution, we need to see a new, simplified route to regularisation, based on 5 years’ residence, to make it easier to escape destitution.

Even while the policies driving destitution remain baked into the Hostile Environment, destitution does not have to be a fixed state: with stability, support and legal advice, many can regularise their status and move on with their lives. Therefore, while the government goes on using destitution as a weapon of immigration control, people in our communities need action from local government. That means we need our local and combined authorities to build on their commitments to tackling destitution.

Our asks for local and combined authorities

1. Transparency about access to social care support, including for destitute families, with staff fully trained on people’s entitlements and routes to support.

2. Better access to accommodation for Greater Manchester residents facing destitution.

3. Better access to legal advice to escape destitution, and support to act on that advice.

4. An environment of solidarity, welcome and support across Greater Manchester for people living in destitution.

End Destitution Campaign

We are proud to be partners of the GM Migrant Destitution Fund, and to have pledged our support for their campaign to End Destitution. You can read more about the campaign on their website, including resources to contact your elected representatives, and sign the pledge: I pledge to do everything in my power to END DESTITUTION, so that everyone in our communities in Greater Manchester can live with dignity, no matter where they come from.

Join the campaign

Report: A Slow Violence

In 2024, we published a report with The Boaz Trust about destitution in Greater Manchester. The report showed how people in the city-region are avoidably forced into destitution for years, sometimes decades, as a result of their immigration status.

The report highlights the multiple barriers that prevent people from escaping destitution, including inconsistent access to homelessness accommodation and the severe lack of legal advice, which means that individuals who could regularise their status remain trapped in destitution for years on end. But the report also highlights how people can move on especially if they have stable accommodation, quality advice, and support to act on that advice.

As well as making a series of recommendations to national government, the report, building on positive developments in recent years, lays out what can be done to design destitution out of our city-region. 

“If enforced destitution is a form of slow violence, we are all – statutory and voluntary sector bodies, as well as wider society – going to continue to be entangled in these webs of violence for the foreseeable future, whether we like it or not. And yet we have a choice as to what we do about it.”

Read the report

Please see our Homelessness and Crisis page for information about the services GMIAU provides to people facing homelessness or destitution due to their immigration status.

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