The Home Office has rented 16,000 properties for asylum seekers, leaving local families and young workers struggling to find affordable homes, the Daily Telegraph reveals.
The properties, sourced from the private and social housing sectors, accommodate more than 58,000 asylum seekers across England, Wales and Scotland.
This is twice the number of asylum seekers in ‘dispersed accommodation’ 10 years ago. The Home Office is increasing its use of rented properties to fulfil Rishi Sunak’s promise to cut down on the use of hotels, which have cost up to £8 million a day.
Last year, there were about 50,000 asylum seekers in 400 taxpayer-funded hotels and by the end of last month, 50 asylum hotels had closed, with another 50 expected to shut by the spring.
Asylum seekers in rented properties
Housing asylum seekers in rented properties can cost as low as £30 a day, while hotels can cost up to £150 a day.
However, experts warn that the scheme is depriving local families and young workers of cheaper rented homes. A Home Office insider told the Telegraph “the department’s strong preference is for dispersal accommodation because it is so much cheaper and much more discreet than hotels. That’s not to say it’s not unpopular. Some of the contractors are taking properties in pretty normal streets. You can buy yourself a £300,000 house and suddenly find your next-door neighbour is a house full of asylum seekers. MPs are starting to report problems as a result of this. It has also been very heavily clustered in places where property is cheap – Hull, Bradford and Teesside. It is potentially damaging to these places because it creates ghettos which are terrible for integration.”
30,000 properties may be required to stop using hotels
The Telegraph says that up to 30,000 properties may be required to stop using hotels unless the Government can significantly reduce the 100,000 backlog of asylum seekers awaiting a decision on their status.
The insider explained “there is a shift away from hotels to putting people into housing which on one level is not a bad idea but on another level, on the scale it is being done, is going to have quite a significant impact in areas where it is being done at scale. That’s 16,000 properties that would normally be available to families looking for somewhere to rent and live, and often to get themselves off the local housing register.”
At the end of 2021-22, there were 1.2 million people on council house waiting lists, up from 1.19 million in 2020-21.
Paid £4 billion over 10 years
The contractors behind the scheme – Serco, Clearsprings and Mears – have been paid £4 billion over 10 years to provide accommodation to asylum seekers.
More than 25,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Britain via small boats since Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister.
Serco advertises the benefits to landlords as five-year leases with “rent paid in full, on time, every month, with no arrears”, as well as full repair and maintenance, except for structural defects.
Utilities and council tax bills are also covered under the contracts, which offer “full Houses of Multiple Occupation and property management” and no letting or management costs.
With more than a third of UK landlords facing rental arrears a year, one housing expert close to the project said the deals were highly attractive. “If you’re a landlord, wouldn’t you take a five-year contract where they’re going to pay all the rent regardless,” they said.
‘Reduce the unacceptable use of hotels’
A Home Office spokesman told the Telegraph: “We continue to work across government and with local authorities to identify a range of accommodation options to reduce the unacceptable use of hotels which cost £8 million a day. The government remains committed to engaging with local authorities and key stakeholders as part of this process.”
The spokesman refused to comment on the figures but said “we are working to procure sufficient dispersal accommodation to meet our statutory obligation.”
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said “the Government’s gross mismanagement of the asylum system has led to immense human misery, with people left in limbo for years on end in a huge backlog of cases resulting in billions being wasted on hotels and other accommodation. It would not be like this if the Government focused on operating a fair, efficient and effective system instead of the Rwanda plan that will only lead to more cost and chaos.”