Two of the three charities that will benefit from this year’s Guardian and Observer appeal are directly involved in finding places for refugees to stay. Unlike previous appeal partners, Naccom and Refugees at Home are both less than a decade old. Each exists to meet a need for suitable accommodation that has recently risen sharply. While Refugees at Home began as a kitchen-table operation set up by people who wanted to open up their own homes, Naccom is a national network of 130 frontline organisations involved in housing and other services. The third charity is the Refugee Councils of Britain, whose history dates back to the creation of the UN Convention on Refugees in 1951.
In one important sense, refugees are homeless by definition. It is their flight from war or persecution in their countries of origin that has brought them to the UK. But the current shortage of affordable housing, combined with immigration policy changes and huge pressure on council budgets, means that asylum seekers and those whose claims have been granted are more vulnerable than ever to becoming rough sleepers. A recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated that 400,000 of about 1.8m destitute households (those lacking two or more essentials) are migrants. It also noted that recent arrivals are most at risk and predicted that the Illegal Migration Act will lead to a further surge in homeless asylum seekers. The Red Cross suggests as many as 50,000 people could be affected.
