Please help us support people who have just received their refugee status but are being threatened with homelessness as a result!
by Haringey Welcome in London, Greater London, United Kingdom
As more asylum seekers receive their refugee status we expect to have more people facing the same financial difficulties in the coming months. Any additional money we raise will go directly towards supporting them in securing their first private accommodation. If we get the full amount of our stretch target, we will be able to help 17 people to avoid this manufactured homelessness crisis!
Why we need your help
In Haringey and across England and Wales, we are facing a humanitarian emergency as the number of refugees becoming street homeless is skyrocketing.
Short eviction periods for vacating Home Office accommodation make the transition to independent living hugely challenging, both financially and practically.
A moment which should be joyful, receiving a positive outcome on an asylum claim, quickly turns into a nightmare which is ending in people hitting the streets.
However, we have a solution but we need your help to make it happen. Together we can ensure that people who have already been through so much, get a fighting chance at starting life in the UK.
Haringey Welcome is partnering with Museum of Homelessness (MoH) to raise desperately needed money to assist these members of our Haringey community with the upfront cost to rent a room.
A total of around £1,600 is needed for each individual for 1 month’s deposit and 1 month’s rent to top up what the council provides and give them a helping hand to avoid falling into homelessness and destitution.
The practical action of making a donation here is also a collective expression of the compassion and solidarity that’s in abundance in our community and in the country. It’s an opportunity to have a direct and lasting impact for good on somebody’s life.
Housing Crisis meets Hostile Environment
The Government has been on a long-running mission to establish a “Hostile Environment” for migrants and refugees. The latest iteration of this is to grant asylum seekers refugee status, only to follow it swiftly with an eviction notice asking them to vacate their Home Office accommodation without any support to move on.
This creates a perfect storm for these members of our community, many of whom are living with the effects of conflict and trauma and are in the very early stages of rebuilding their lives. In other words, they are being set up to fail.
However, where the problem is financial - we can all help. We might not be able to change government policy, but we can counter it with solidarity and generosity for these vulnerable members of our community.
Although they are facing the UK’s dysfunctional and often discriminatory housing market with no savings (having lived on £8 a week for months or even years on end, without the right to work), no references, no credit history, and no guarantors, we know that in all of us, they have friends and allies in the community who can support them at this most critical moment of transition.
How you can help
We are aware of 5 refugees in Haringey currently facing these specific issues and expect more to join them in the immediate future, as the government makes further refugee decisions.
The aim of this fundraiser is to raise enough money to address the financial side of the equation. The funds raised will top up the ~£500 support Haringey Council provides for people facing homelessness who don’t qualify as “priority need”. With rents per room in Haringey currently in the region of £700-800 a month, the amount needed will be up to £1,600 for rent and deposit for each single individual.
Our target is to raise £900 per person to cover the shortfall left from any council support and the £200 matched by the MoH solidarity fund, and bridge them until they either receive their first Universal Credit payment, or secure their first job.
This manufactured crisis is avoidable. Having the stability of your own personal space - a bedroom, a kitchen to cook some food in, is the foundation we all need to build our lives on.
Every penny you provide is critical. It gets us closer to supporting one more refugee to secure their accommodation and spare them the physical and mental health risks associated with street homelessness.
Who we are
Haringey Welcome is a voluntary campaign group made up of residents from the London Borough of Haringey. We love the diversity of our community, and we believe it should be welcoming for all. We campaign locally and nationally to stop the Government’s Hostile Environment policy (manifested in the Rwanda policy, the Windrush scandal, and so on). We work to promote dignity and respect for all migrants, refugees, and other residents in our community through community engagement and outreach, and direct lobbying of our local authority.
Migration is a normal behaviour that has existed throughout human history. Forced migration results from the existence of adverse circumstances, most frequently occurring in the global south. These include conflict, social upheaval, extreme poverty and, increasingly, the climate crisis, all of which are disproportionately caused by activities of Western countries and corporations. We believe everyone deserves justice, and to find a place to call home in which they feel welcomed.
We recently joined #Homes4All campaign to demand safe and secure homes for everyone in the UK. We know the housing crisis will not end until everyone – regardless of immigration status, ethnicity or nationality – is safely housed.
Museum of Homelessness (MoH) was founded in 2015 and is created and run by people with direct experience of homelessness. MoH is slightly unusual for a museum because it takes direct practical action in support of the community and fights injustice with independent research and campaigning. MoH stands in solidarity with homeless migrants and people seeking asylum.
MoH has legendary campaigner and founder of African Rainbow Family, Aderonke Apata, on its board and the museum has long been fighting the hostile environment. This has included protests against Home Office policy Museum of the Home Office, the 2022 report Toxic, (findings from a year’s research into homelessness, racism, xenophobia and the links between the far right and UK government policy), setting up street legal clinics for the Roma community, stopping deportations, co-producing the launch of Refused in 2023 with NACCOM community researchers and sharing other forms of practical support for migrants experiencing homelessness.
As the museum settles into its new site in Finsbury Park during a winter when the hostile environment is intensifying, the museum crew are committed to doing everything possible to help people experiencing destitution due to UK policies and are pleased we can support with this important work carried out by Haringey Welcome.