by Martin Hilditch and Sue Learner
Thousands of asylum seekers are being left destitute because of regular failures by the National Asylum Support Service and its accommodation providers, a new report has warned.
Failed asylum seekers, entitled to support because they are unable to leave the UK for reasons beyond their control, are being left homeless and reliant on charity hand outs to survive, the report from the Citizens Advice Bureau said.
The problems were caused by NASS’ delays in determining applications for support and by housing providers’ failure to deliver support, it said.
Applicants were generally homeless and destitute and in urgent need of accommodation. Regular delays of weeks and months were putting large numbers of vulnerable people at great risk, it added.
The report provided a raft of individual examples, including an Iraqi Kurd left waiting for housing despite his application for support having succeeded. A CAB advisor was told this was because the NASS team member responsible for booking accommodation was off sick, not expected back for a week and no one else could deal with it.
Richard Danston, report author and immigration policy officer at the CAB, said that NASS had improved its performance recently but that the providers were still a major cause for concern.
‘Clients are being left destitute because accommodation providers are taking weeks to come up with the
accommodation,’ he said.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said it accepted there had been problems administering support and that it was taking steps to address them, in particular the time taken to process applications.
During 2005 NASS received 16,436 applications for support from failed asylum seekers who were unable to return home, five times more than in 2004.
Meanwhile, a controversial plan to forcibly rehouse asylum seeker families in Glasgow, whose current homes are earmarked for demolition, has been put on hold for three months.
The council and the Home Office gave the temporary reprieve after refugee charities said it was outrageous to move families who had been living in Pollokshaws, Glasgow for up to six years.
NASS had said they should be moved to a YMCA hostel on the other side of the city. The families were told if they refused they would lose benefits.
During the three month freeze the Angel Group, which was contracted by the council to rehouse some of the city’s asylum seekers, has been asked to find alternative housing in the local area.
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