Housing Today, 22 October, 2004


Be it low-income families in temporary accommodation or drug users who have been sleeping rough, social landlords work hard to help society’s most vulnerable people. Unless they’re refugees that is. Herpreet Kaur Grewal finds out what’s holding RSLs back in this vital area

For Selan Alam the past two years should have been happy ones. The 25-year-old received refugee status in March 2002 after fleeing persecution in Eritrea with her child, now three years old. But instead, she has been living in temporary accommodation and languishing on Manchester council’s housing waiting list.

When Alam – which is not her real name – was granted leave to remain she was given the standard notice period for all successful asylum seekers of 28 days to move out of the accommodation she had been provided with through the Home Office’s National Asylum Support Service. Manchester council offered her a flat in Riverdale and Blackley in the city but when she went to view it she was the victim of a racially motivated attack: she had to take cover in the building because people threw stones at her and threatened to harm her if she moved in.

She reported the incident to the police but they told her such attacks were common in the area; she was too frightened to move there and has been trying to find permanent accommodation ever since.

According to the Home Office, 27,870 people were granted refugee status, indefinite leave to remain or humanitarian protection last year and Alam’s case is typical of the problems that they face. The most fundamental difficulty is finding permanent housing. Though these people can now work and claim benefits, they are not a priority for housing unless they are homeless or have dependent families.

Even if they are housed, refugees may need specialist support to overcome trauma, cope with living within unfamiliar communities and find a job.

Perhaps surprisingly, given their mission to support the most vulnerable members of society, housing associations have been slow to come forwards to fill the gap. Speaking at the National Housing Federation’s annual conference last year, Housing Corporation chief executive Jon Rouse said he wanted more associations to provide specialist move-on accommodation for refugees – somewhere to live once their stay in NASS accommodation comes to an end. Only two – Refugee Housing Association and the Safe Haven partnership in Yorkshire – currently do so, which begs the question: why have registered social landlords taken a back seat up to now?

Of course, housing associations do house refugees if they are referred through council waiting lists. But there are few mechanisms in place to attract refugees independently and most offer no specific language, health or cultural support to help sustain tenancies.

Alam’s experience suggests that awareness of the housing association sector and what it can do is very low among refugee communities. The option of applying to an RSL for housing was never presented to her until recently, when her new support worker – Sysay Habonimana, manager of the Asylum and Refugee project at community group support organisation East Manchester Community Forum – helped put her on a housing association waiting list.

“When you register for the first time with the council, they never tell you that you can also be housed by housing associations,” says Habonimana. “Out of ignorance people wait between six months and a year for a house with the council.” She adds that while council homes offered to refugees may be in the most unpopular and dangerous areas, housing associations offer a greater choice.

Manchester council disputes this. A spokesperson said that the housing register covers most of the main associations and that homeless people are routinely asked if they want to be considered for RSL housing.

But housing associations themselves often have little choice about who they house, as Rouse pointed out in a speech to the Housing Associations Charitable Trust in June, because local authorities have nomination rights to their properties. A lot of refugees may only access associations through the council waiting list, so the importance each council places on refugee needs is crucial.

“Local authorities are starting to look at their regional housing strategies and how they address refugee housing needs within those strategies,” says Sandra Skeete, director of Refugee Housing Association. “Until that happens consistently across the country there will always be a service gap at the stage where people have to move from NASS support to finding permanent housing.”

Refugee Housing Association has a sub-contract with NASS through the east Midlands, in Leicester, Derby and Nottingham, providing over 800 homes for more than 2000 asylum seekers. Move-on accommodation is not in the association’s official remit but it still helps to provide a service.

“In my view, although we don’t have a contractual responsibility, we do have a moral responsibility,” says Skeete. “I couldn’t put my name to a service that left people to get on with things at a time when they are supposed to be celebrating the fact that they are allowed to stay in the country.

“There is probably a lot more we could do, but we need support from other RSLs.”

Skeete suggests the Home Office policy since 1999 of dispersing asylum seekers to parts of the country that had no experience of their needs may mean associations feel they lack the skills to offer help when these people achieve refugee status. The RSLs are frightened of venturing into the unknown.

Examining how RSLs’ policies could be deterring refugees from making contact with the RSLs is one way to start to ameliorate the situation, she says.

“I would challenge RSLs to review their lettings policies, for example, just to make sure they aren’t indirectly discriminating against refugees. I know some RSLs say people must be able to prove they’ve been resident in the area for a year, or have evidence of a local connection, to register with them. But if refugees have been in temporary accommodation supported by the Home Office for six months they are obviously not going to meet those criteria.”

She also believes RSLs should do more to make asylum seekers aware of how to access their services after they receive full residential status. “Refugee Housing Association is trying to give asylum seekers information but it’s difficult. It needs to be done from both angles, by us, as providers of NASS support but also by the RSLs that can assist refugees.”

“When you register with the council, they never tell you about RSLs. Out of ignorance, people wait up to a year for a council house ”

Sysay Habonimana, the asylum and refugee project

Others say a lack of housing-related support services for refugees under the Supporting People regime hinders RSLs who do want to help.

The 4300-unit Leeds Federated Housing Association provides 20 properties for refugees across the city as well as tailored support including advice on welfare entitlements, applications, accessing education and training such as English language skills, legal problems, settling into new areas and specialist counselling. From April 2003 to September 2004 Leeds Federated has provided housing and support for 66 refugees and spends approximately £3380 a year on each refugee.

Since the ODPM announced cuts to Supporting People – from £1.8bn in 2004/5, to £1.7bn in 2007/8 – most local authorities expect to see cuts in their allocations for 2005/6, due to be revealed in November. Supporting People teams nationwide are making contingency plans, which will affect housing associations like Leeds Federated who want to provide support to refugees in their area.

“There is a downsizing of grants rather than expanding of current provision,” says Mike White, head of supportive housing at Leeds Federated. “In Leeds, Supporting People teams have recognised they have a lack of housing-related support for refugees. They recognise there is scope for more services – but they have to make a tough choice between refugee clients, older people, people with disabilities and young people who are homeless or have drug and alcohol problems. Certain groups will have a lack of services.”

White says refugee-focused provision suffers from a disjointed approach in local and central government. “I think it’s all down to the commissioning bodies in each local authority and whether they are all linked into the Home Office agenda for the integration of refugees, as well as to the Housing Corporation’s objectives for diversifying the social housing sector. That will vary between local authorities: it comes down to individual commissioning bodies and the needs of the area. There needs to be a more joined-up strategy between the Home Office, the ODPM and the Housing Corporation to meet refugee housing needs.”

HACT is at the forefront of providing

move-on accomodation, and earlier this month announced a project that involves helping 10 associations to provide specialist housing support for refugees. Director Heather Petch agrees that social landlords need to be one part of a joined-up solution when it comes to move-on accommodation and says the first step in that direction would be to make housing a fundamental tenet of any integration strategy, which the Home Office’s does not do.

Part of its strategy, entitled Integration Matters, is the Sunrise Programme, which aims to provide refugees with intensive one-to-one advice during the 28-day move on period through services provided by voluntary sector organisations. Each refugee who chooses to take part in the programme will have a dedicated caseworker who helps them compile a personal integration plan, including advice on registering for benefits, looking for work, getting work and accessing training or education.

“It’s actually very weak on the housing front,” says Petch. “There is an emphasis in the document on employment, as one might expect, but not much on housing.”

Petch calls the Sunrise Programme a “short, sharp intervention” and doubts that one worker assigned to one person will have expertise across the range of areas that need to be addressed for successful integration.

“There must be a much more strategic, multi-agency response to the transition period. Without that you are in danger of contracting voluntary organisations to provide support that isn’t well resourced enough to achieve much, and also isn’t well placed to effect change in terms of local and regional policies and strategies,” she says.

“If there are problems with accessing housing, if for example refugees are being discriminated against in a certain local authority area, a contract with a voluntary sector organisation to deliver a frontline service – which is going to be strapped for resources anyway – is not necessarily going to make changes in the bigger ways as needed.

“This needs to be looked at again.”

For example, HACT’s own multi-agency project Accommodate involves housing providers, local authorities, voluntary and community groups working to improve refugees’ access to housing and related support. HACT will contribute expertise and funding to partnerships in 10 local areas where there is significant new refugee settlement.

The hope is that Accommodate will be a catalyst to get more organisations, housing associations among them, working on integrating refugees into communities.

Once they raise their own awareness about the particular challenges of catering for refugees, and the unique role they can play in integration, RSLs will then be in a position to begin improving their visibility both with the government and with the people who need their help.

As Petch says: “It’s not peculiar to refugee integration that when people don’t have housing, employment also becomes difficult and you cannot register for benefits or with a GP – that is a fact of life for everyone.

“Housing is the key to the door to integration.”