The UK can afford to house everyone, so why don't we?

Sharaan was thrown on the floor and left with a bro­ken fin­ger. It was the third time the 42 year old Sri Lankan was assault­ed by one of his house­mates. So far, in the 16 years since he arrived in the coun­try, he hasn’t had any luck secur­ing safe and clean hous­ing. Like many search­ing the hous­ing mar­ket, find­ing a place with a good land­lord who takes care of the prop­er­ty and answers when you call is rare at best. 

Sharaan is one of many that has been forced by our gov­ern­ment to live in pri­vate asy­lum accom­mo­da­tion, he’s been moved from hotels to sev­en room hous­es with rooms only big enough for a bed and a bed­side table. Hav­ing to move into a cramped and dirty house share is an all too famil­iar feel­ing for many. But why is this hap­pen­ing in the world’s sixth rich­est economy?

The answer is pri­va­teer­ing — pri­vate com­pa­nies mak­ing a fast buck from hous­ing. Whether it’s pri­vate land­lords charg­ing rock­et­ing rent or mul­ti-mil­lion pound cor­po­ra­tions win­ning gov­ern­ment con­tracts to house asy­lum seek­ers in squalid accom­mo­da­tion, pri­vate com­pa­nies are prof­it­ing from our bro­ken social hous­ing system.

As if things weren’t bad enough already, last week the gov­ern­ment began hous­ing peo­ple on the Bib­by Stock­holm, a float­ing barge off Dorset. The barge has been called a float­ing prison and the Fire Brigades Union said the lack of fire safe­ty pro­vi­sions makes it a ​“poten­tial death trap”. For those who have called it a ​“palace” and have sug­gest­ed that we should use it for social hous­ing or to solve street home­less­ness — it is the fur­thest thing from a palace and no one should be liv­ing in it — not least because those on board were evac­u­at­ed after just 4 days because of the dis­cov­ery of Legionel­la bac­te­ria.

When the barge was last used in the Nether­lands, one per­son died and there were reports of rape and abuse. Aside from being inher­ent­ly immoral, this new evil scheme is putting more pub­lic mon­ey in the hands of pri­vate firms. Hous­ing asy­lum seek­ers in float­ing barges like the Bib­by Stock­holm has seen the gov­ern­ment hand over £1.6 bil­lion of taxpayer’s mon­ey to Aus­tralian firm Cor­po­rate Trav­el Man­age­ment (CTM). It’s an obscene amount of pub­lic mon­ey to pro­vide cru­el and cramped liv­ing con­di­tions to some of the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in our country.

Award­ing a 1.6 bil­lion pound con­tract to house asy­lum seek­ers on barges and spend­ing 5.6 mil­lion pounds a day on hotels is a polit­i­cal choice. It’s a choice to put mon­ey into the pock­ets of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions, ensure that asy­lum seek­ers are housed in the most heinous ways and waste tax­pay­er mon­ey. Sim­i­lar­ly fail­ing to con­trol the pri­vate rental mar­ket with rent­caps, fail­ing to build social hous­ing that could help solve rent bub­bles, end street home­less­ness and pro­vide ade­quate asy­lum hous­ing is a polit­i­cal choice. This gov­ern­ment has failed to hit their hous­ing tar­get for new hous­es by near­ly 100,000 hous­es per year and social hous­ing con­tin­ues to decline.

While they fail in build­ing social hous­ing for all, they exceed in sign­ing away pub­lic mon­ey to pri­vate com­pa­nies. Four years into their 4 bil­lion pound tax­pay­er fund­ed asy­lum accom­mo­da­tion con­tracts both Ser­co and Clear­springs, have report­ed ris­ing prof­its. Ser­co run the infa­mous Yarls Wood and Brook House deten­tion cen­tres which have seen mul­ti­ple abuse alle­ga­tions and Clear­springs hold the con­tract for the dread­ful Napi­er Bar­racks which MPs have demand­ed ​“must close with imme­di­ate effect” and courts have ruled ​“unlaw­ful”*. Nonethe­less, in the first 6 months of this year alone Ser­co has seen a 13% growth with an expect­ed rev­enue of £2.5 bil­lion due to ​“robust demand for immi­gra­tion ser­vices”. Sim­i­lar­ly, Clear­springs, announced £28 mil­lion prof­it, attribut­ing their ​“growth” in demand for ser­vices due to soar­ing num­bers of asy­lum seek­ers flee­ing ​“polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic tur­moil”. At one end cor­po­ra­tions mer­ri­ly count their mil­lions, at the oth­er Sharaan bat­tles on with ​“pain all over” caused by unsafe accommodation.

Both the rental mar­ket and asy­lum accom­mo­da­tion are prof­it chas­ing rack­ets which force social pain on those whom the mar­kets serve. Pri­vate land­lords and firms force peo­ple to live in unin­hab­it­able, unsan­i­tary and cramped hous­ing while charg­ing extor­tion­ate amounts and their cor­po­rate sib­lings force asy­lum seek­ers into unsafe hotels and cramped float­ing barges with­out fire safety.

As Sharaan shared, ​“when you’re an asy­lum seek­er peo­ple see you as a thief”, but it is cor­po­ra­tions not asy­lum seek­ers who are the thieves. Cor­po­ra­tions are mak­ing mil­lions off our bro­ken social hous­ing and asy­lum sys­tems, swal­low­ing up mas­sive gov­ern­ment con­tracts, promis­ing ​“safe­ty and respect to some of the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in soci­ety” while fail­ing across the board and pri­ori­tis­ing prof­its over welfare.

Instead of wast­ing mon­ey on pri­vate con­tracts and retrau­ma­tis­ing already vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple, the gov­ern­ment could house peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ties where they can adjust to life in our coun­try. The solu­tion to hous­ing asy­lum seek­ers is the same as the solu­tion to end­ing street home­less­ness and the pri­vate rental hous­ing cri­sis many are fac­ing across the coun­try – build more safe and afford­able hous­ing for all.

*Edi­tors note: Fol­low­ing the MPs calls to shut down Napi­er Bar­racks a Home Office spokesper­son said the use of the site was ​“vital” in help­ing to accom­mo­date asy­lum seek­ers, adding ​“sig­nif­i­cant works have been car­ried out to improve the con­di­tions, man­age­ment and over­sight. Napi­er is safe, warm, dry and pro­vides a choice of good hot meals as well as prop­er laun­dry, clean­ing and mul­ti-faith reli­gious facilities”. 

Sha­ran is a client of the Joint Coun­cil for the Wel­fare of Immigrants

Rav­ishaan Rahel Muthi­ah is Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor at the Joint Coun­cil for the Wel­fare of Immi­grant

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