Migration, Asylum, and Trafficking
Summary
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Poor housing conditions and insecure living arrangements are significant challenges facing vulnerable migrants, people stuck in the asylum system, and survivors of trafficking. These challenges are exacerbated when these groups transition between and within systems.
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Commonweal believes that the right housing solutions, if implemented alongside the fitting services, can lead to reduced homelessness, improved integration, and economic flourishing.
Taken together, the experiences of migrants, asylum seekers, and victims of human trafficking are varied and nuanced. However, each group faces the prospect of insecure housing, with certain groups not entitled to access support services available to the wider citizen body.
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Individuals transitioning out of asylum accommodation after obtaining refugee status often experience homelessness, and refugee homelessness has risen by almost 350 percent, following the growing number of newly granted refugees needing to exiting asylum accommodation within a 56-day period (28 days until December 2024).
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Key Priorities
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​Address transition points between and within systems that drive housing insecurity (such as asylum seeker to refugee status, the NRM lifecycle, family reunification, etc.)
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Support survivors of trafficking, both non-UK and UK nationals.
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Demonstrate possible long term savings for the government through focusing on community integration or employability support, as examples.​
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Additionally, family reunification can lead to heightened housing pressures caused by overcrowding in their current homes, often requiring a move to temporary housing to accommodate family joiners.
As highlighted by the Human Trafficking Foundation, both UK and non-UK nationals risk homelessness when escaping trafficking, as their housing is often tied to their exploitation. As such, inappropriate housing and inadequate support when fleeing exploitation puts survivors at risk of re-exploitation.
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A lack of suitable safe accommodation options for survivors pre-NRM support means they are often placed in hotels for extended periods without support. In these cases, constrained living and communal accommodation results in survivors facing housing stress, poor health and wellbeing and re-exploitation.
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Commonweal seeks to address homelessness and housing insecurity in the UK regardless of status or origin, and continues to investigate and test support models to improve outcomes for the groups described above.
Featured Housing Project:
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Local authorities paid less than the average annual cost for accommodation, which, along with the faster route to regularizing status offered by the project’s advice component, offered significant savings.
