Afghan families are at risk of becoming homeless and ending up in temporary accommodation due to the acute housing shortage, council chiefs warn at the start of the Local Government Association’s (LGA) annual conference.
Council leaders also said that local authorities were at a ‘crisis point’ and called for a ‘radical reset’ of the relationship between Government and councils when it comes to asylum and resettlement schemes.
Around 8,000 Afghan individuals and families – housed at 59 temporary bridging hotels across the country – have been served notice by the Home Office to leave by the end of August.
In March, the Government made additional funding available to councils to help these refugees find settled accommodation. This included £35m for local authorities to help people access employment and the housing system, and an extra £250m in the Local Authority Housing Fund.
However, the LGA today warned that the short timeframe until the end of the notice periods and the acute housing shortage was making it ‘extremely challenging’ to secure appropriate accommodation for all Afghan families.
New LGA chair Cllr Shaun Davies will say at the conference today: ‘Councils have a proud history of stepping up and supporting asylum seekers and refugees to settle in the UK and rebuild their lives. But combined pressures from Government asylum and resettlement schemes are growing on councils.
‘We are at crisis point. We want to work with the Government to get this right. Not just in a way that best supports the people arriving in the UK but also tackles the unsustainable pressures on our local services and on our communities.’
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