Refugees living in Newcastle hotels during lockdown were left “vulnerable” and without fresh food or basic Covid protection, a damning report has found.
An inquiry by councillors has slammed the living conditions experienced by refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the city during the pandemic. The Newcastle City Council probe also criticised a lack of appropriate medical facilities, identified security issues caused as hotels were targeted by far-right groups, and claimed that the situation reminded torture victims of being in prison.
A Tyneside charity has called the use of hotels as accommodation “an inhumane way to treat people fleeing persecution”. Mears Group, which has been contracted by the Home Office to provide housing for asylum seekers in the North East since 2019, said it needed to use hotels due to an “acute shortage” of suitable homes and that people's safety was “of the utmost importance”.
