Ministers have quietly reversed an administrative change made in the summer that resulted in refugees being evicted from hostels with just seven days’ notice, triggering a surge in street homelessness.
The Home Office admitted that it had abandoned the measure, introduced in August, which in effect reduced the notice-to-quit period from 28 days to just a week, giving refugees awarded leave to remain little time to find alternative housing and get social security support.
That change, seemingly designed to cut the asylum backlog and speed up the removal of refugees from hotels, triggered a sharp increase in destitution and rough sleeping, forcing some local homelessness charities to resort to buying tents for refugees.
Rick Henderson, the chief executive of Homeless Link, which represents frontline homelessness charities, said he was relieved to see the practice finally reversed after “months of chaos and hardship” for refugees which had put a huge strain on charities.
He said: “The Home Office’s decision to change when the notice period for people granted refugee status to leave asylum accommodation is issued was deeply damaging, causing rough sleeping to skyrocket and exposing new refugees to the trauma of homelessness.”
The number of people sleeping rough in England after being discharged from Home Office accommodation more than quadrupled between May and September. New official figures show 222 people in this category were sleeping on the streets in September, up from 48 in May.
The government figures only cover rough sleepers identified by outreach activity. Anecdotally, many charities and local authorities – which have been campaigning for the August decision to be reversed for months – report that the scale of rough sleeping by refugees who come to them for support is even greater than official figures suggest.
Phil Kerry, chief executive of the New Horizon Youth Centre, a London-based homelessness charity for 16- to 24-year-olds, said 43% of people who currently used the charity’s services were refugees, up 17% on a year ago. “On Monday alone, we had 45 young people waiting outside, most of them from Home Office [accommodation],” he said.
The Home Office said the now-abandoned August change, reportedly made at the request of the then immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, was only ever meant to be temporary, although this appears not to have been formally communicated before. Jenrick resigned this month over the Rwanda deportation policy.
Before August, the 28-day move-on period began when a refugee received their biometric residence permit, allowing them to work or get universal credit. The change meant the period started from the day a refugee received their asylum decision letter, meaning they had as little as seven days to find somewhere to live.
The subsequent rapid rise in refugee street homelessness has proved embarrassing for a government whose most high-profile social policy is to eradicate rough sleeping. A £2bn strategy launched last year promised to end rough sleeping for good, with joined-up working between government departments and local councils at the heart of it.
One campaigner said: “This is a classic example of government departments not working together. You have one bit of Whitehall [the Department for Levelling Up] committed to ending rough sleeping, and another [the Home Office] evicting refugees straight to the streets.”
Stephen Kinnock, the shadow minister for immigration, said: “Refugees should not be left destitute, but too often the government is passing the buck to local councils who are already dealing with a housing crisis.”
Charities point out that while the Home Office U-turn removes a cause of the recent jump in refugee rough sleeping, it will not remove the problem of refugee homelessness. They are calling for the move-on period to be increased to 56 days, to give refugees more time to find somewhere to live, find work, or register for benefits.
Tackling the recent explosion in refugee homelessness is a key part of the Guardian and Observer annual appeal, which is now raising money for three charities which support homeless and destitute refugees and asylum seekers.
A government spokesperson confirmed in a statement that it had reverted to the pre-August arrangements. They said: “Once a newly recognised refugee is issued a biometric residence permit, they get 28 days to move on from asylum accommodation.”
