Campaigners have called on the Government to allocate local authorities with more funds to help them provide better services to asylum seekers housed in hotels in London.
The group Migrant Voice says the asylum system ‘systematically dehumanises’ refugees and creates an ‘atmosphere of cruelty’ leaving them in limbo.
A new report by the group, drawing on the experiences of 170 asylum seekers housed in London, found people have been left in over-crowded hotels with poor quality food and a lack of cooking facilities.
The report also said healthcare was ‘dangerously erratic’ and staff were sometimes abusive.
As of December 2022 there were 110,171 supported asylum seekers in the UK, of whom roughly 50,000 were placed in hotels, or other forms of 'contingency accommodation'.
Migrant Voice called for more investment into providing suitable accommodation within communities.
They also said councils should have more support to enable them to provide better services.
‘The asylum seekers we spoke to consistently reported feeling stripped of any power or control over their lives by the way they were treated. They saw no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel,’ read the report.
‘Having escaped war, persecution or other violence, they are stranded in rooms shared with strangers, forbidden from working while waiting for an asylum decision; struggling to afford bare necessities such as toiletries and medicine; often unable to speak English and with no language courses available, and forced to eat poor-quality food every day.
‘Worst of all, they are left for months with no communication from the Home Office, trapped in an endless limbo, sustained only by a desperate hope of one day returning to a normal life.
‘Based on information gathered from independent reports and evidence of conditions, these issues are likely to increase with the use of alternative “contingency accommodation”, such as disused former military sites, where access to support and external facilities may be even more limited.’
