The Greater Manchester Asylum Hotels Group has today released their vision of how people should be housed while waiting for an asylum decision. The group is made up of people with experience of living in asylum hotels and other forms of asylum accommodation who have come together to speak out and be a voice for change. The group has previously issued statements responding to the protests outside hotels and setting out what life is really like inside hotels, and on how the government’s planned changes to asylum and to settlement make them feel.
To set out their vision for how asylum accommodation could be, the group started by thinking about the emotions they need to feel, as people seeking safety in the UK, while waiting for their asylum decision. They then worked back to think about the basics they need from the accommodation to foster these kinds of emotion.
“We are not looking for luxury – but every human being needs a basic space they can call home, where they can live with dignity.”
The document covers expectations about the accommodation itself, staff and rules, connecting with the local community, and responding to feedback. In the process of imagining how things could be different, group members shared the difficult experiences they have faced within the current system – which the document juxtaposes with the positive vision the group sets out.
“Often the accommodation feels like a prison, not a home.”
The clear vision the group has set forth is timely: the current asylum accommodation system has not been around forever, and it is not inevitable that it should continue in the same form. Accommodation is currently managed through private providers operating on 10-year contracts, due to expire in 2029. The widespread use of asylum hotels dates back only to the pandemic, and the government has pledged to end the use of hotels also by 2029.
Proposals from IPPR, Refugee Action and the Commission for the Integration of Refugees have set out how asylum accommodation could be better delivered through a decentralised, locally delivered not-for-profit model. Meanwhile, the government, doubling down on their hostile rhetoric and policy, has moved to expand the use of large military sites while pursuing an opaque process for the new set of contracts post-2029.
The GM Asylum Hotel Group’s vision is a crucial reminder that whatever comes next, human beings need to be at centre.
Please read and share this document widely. And in any discussions you might have about how people are housed while waiting for an asylum decision, please use this document to keep human beings at the centre of the conversation.
Thanks to Asylum Matters and Caritas Shrewsbury for their shared support of the group alongside us.