4 January 2024

Journalist Greg Barradale recently wrote an article for the Big Issue on changes in Home Office policies and what they mean for homelessness. Glass Door’s co-head of casework, Neil, was quoted prominently in the article.

In August 2023, the Home Office changed its policies regarding asylum applications, intending to clear the large backlog and reduce the number of people in asylum accommodation. The effect of these changes was to significantly reduce the amount of time that people had to leave asylum accommodation after being given refugee status.

Many refugees had as little as one week to find alternative accommodation, open a bank account and acquire a source of income. This resulted in large numbers falling into homelessness in the months after August.

As the article describes, Glass Door’s night shelters “experienced unmanageable demand thanks in part to the consequences” of this decision.

In December, the Home Office reversed the changes that were made in August, ensuring that refugees were given 28 days before having to leave asylum accommodation.

Neil was quoted in regard to this reversal:

While we are glad to see the change back to 28 days, a great deal of irreversible harm has already been done over the last four months. There has been a huge human impact, as well as massively increased pressures on local authorities and frontline services.

Unfortunately, we will likely continue to see increased levels of homelessness as an after-effect of this policy for some time.

The full article can be found here: https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/homeless-refugees-home-office-asylum-backlog/