PCoS Full Network meeting will be on Monday
Preston City of Sanctuary via Greg
It will be held online.. but we are hoping that from the summer we will be back to in person meetings (perhaps with an option of following online)
This is the zoom link
Topic: PCoS Full Network Meeting
Time: Mar 14, 2022 05:45 PM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87999277145?pwd=QnNJR1pYanpKWjdXU2g0VnM5MFM3UT09
Meeting ID: 879 9927 7145
Passcode: 871147
We are going to look at housing issues which affect sanctuary seekers in the Preston area.
To discuss these issues we have invited a panel of housing / homelessness professionals and sanctuary seekers to share experiences and explore solutions.
This includes :
Refugees in the resettlement programme.. some of our Afghan refugees six months after arrival are still in unsatisfactory housing complexes or hotels and are finding it difficult to get affordable tenancies especially if they need a large house for a large family.
Asylum Seekers are housed by Serco mainly in shared accommodation in the community which is of variable quality. There seems to be a trend for new arrivals to be "dumped" at least temporarily in hotels, often in remote settings and an increasing threat of using secure units or even offshore settings.
Accepted Asylum Seekers who become Refugees have great difficulty and limited time to find a tenancy, and as many are single people have almost no rights to social housing other than advice. Rents are high, often deposits are required upfront, benefits or earnings are low and take too long to come through.
Refused Asylum Seekers generally have no recourse to public funds and no right to take on a tendency so can easily become destitute, and homeless, reliant on the good will of friends for a place to stay, or vulnerable to exploitation in the underground economy.
Many thanks,
Greg Smith – on behalf of
Preston City of Sanctuary Team
https://preston.cityofsanctuary.org