Afghan refugees ‘to be evicted from hotels’
Thousands of Afghan refugees are reportedly set to be forced out of hotels under new Government plans.
Between 8,000 and 9,000 Afghan refugees who are living in hotels across the UK will be given three months’ notice in April to leave, and will be offered one property that they must accept, according to The Times.
The latest Government figures show that 9,483 Afghans who fled the Taliban in 2021 – around half of whom are children – are currently living in hotels, under a widely-criticised scheme that costs around £1.2 million a day.
Some, who have now moved into homes, told the Standard that living in a hotel for months on end “felt like a prison” while one father struggled to get medical help for his wife who suffered a miscarriage.
Under plans set to be unveiled today, any families that have not had an offer of accommodation or have turned down a home by the end of the three-month period will reportedly have to present as homeless.
An announcement is expected to be made by Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer to the House of Commons later on Tuesday. He is set to tell MPs that the Government will find permanent homes for refugees.
The news is likely to spark concerns that hundreds Afghan refugees could become homeless.
Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said the plans could leave refugees “destitute on the streets of Britain”.
“This is not how those who were promised a warm welcome in the UK should be treated.
“Hotels are not the right place for refugees to live but the fact that thousands of Afghans have been left in them for months on end is a consequence of government mismanagement and a failure to work successfully in partnership with local councils and other agencies to find suitable housing.
“To expect councils to suddenly move them out of hotels by putting pressure of Afghan families risks causing great misery and anxiety for those who have already experienced trauma and upheaval.”
Plans will be announced later this week to start transferring the first asylum seekers from hotels to former military bases and possibly ferries, The Times reports.
The plan will not apply to asylum seekers housed in hotels by the Home Office.
More than 20,000 Afghan refugees arrived in the UK following the Taliban takeover and the fall of Kabul in 2021.
Figures provided to the Commons Home Affairs Committee last year showed that £5.6 million a day was being spent on hotels for asylum seekers, with £1.2 million paid to house Afghan refugees.
The Home Office was criticised for “raiding” the foreign aid budget to pay its “eye-watering” hotel bills in a scathing report by the International Development Committee. It spent around £1 billion of the aid budget on refugees in the UK in 2021 alone.
The Government has been criticised for spending the budget on hotels instead of funding local authorities to renovate unused homes for refugees.
London Councils previously told the Standard that boosting boroughs’ funding “and improving our ability to access suitable housing would undoubtedly make a positive difference”.
The Government is expected to commit as much as £750 million to providing support to the Afghans to find housing, The Times reports.
The Home Office has cut down on the number of hotels it uses to house Afghan refugees, from 84 in 2021 to 63 at the end of last year.
More than 8,500 Afghan refugees have been moved into a home, while almost 300 households have refused accommodation offers for reasons such as job offers and schooling.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced funding for up to 600 new homes in London for Ukrainian and Afghan refugees last month.
