Refugee Survival Trust – which provides emergency grants to asylum seekers and refugees when their support has been stopped – is raising the alarm after distributing more than £100,000 of destitution payments in 2017.
The British Red Cross claimed that seeing people “feeling hopeless and suicidal” as a result of destitution was a now a “routine occurrence”
Positive Action in Housing, which also helps destitute refugees and migrants, said its own most recent figures were “shockingly high”.
Refugees can find themselves destitute due to administrative delays and errors at all stages of the asylum process, and sometimes have to fight to prove their eligibility. After all appeals have been refused the Home Office insists people should return home and declares them to have no recourse to public funds (NRPF). However many people claim their lives would be in danger, if they were to return.
One refugee family who applied for help had been told it would take 26 weeks to process their claim for child benefit. Also highlighted was the rise in grants required to pay for travel to Liverpool – as since 2015 those wishing to submit fresh claims or further submissions must travel there. The Home Office does not provide travel expenses even to those who are destitute.
In April 2014 a face-to-face support and advocacy service, run by Scottish Refugee Council and funded by the Home Office, was replaced by a UK phone line run by Migrant Help on a reduced grant from for the UK Government department.
“In an age when information sharing is so incredibly easy, it is absolutely crazy that we are putting people through this journey, which is at best inconvenient and expensive and at worst dangerous and psychologically damaging,” RST Coordinator Zoe Holliday said.
She claimed that the government had done “a great PR job” of celebrating the successful resettlement of Syrian refugees, supported through the UNHCR’s Vulnerable Persons Resettlement programme. However, for an estimated 3,500 asylum seekers housed in Glasgow – whose claims are processed while in the UK – Holliday claimed the experience was “bureaucratic, unpredictable and profoundly upsetting”.
Positive Action in Housing Director Robina Qureshi said: “The [UK] Government appears to be ripping support away when people are fast tracked into refusal, leaving people in a kind of shock as to what to do next. The stress is unimaginable.” She claimed charities were being left to “pick up the pieces” of the failing asylum policy. “This seems to be the growing trend of government,” Quereshi said. She added: “to leave the basic humanitarian needs to be provided by charity and faith groups and ordinary citizens. “We have been charged with the care of very vulnerable groups – children, older people with suspected dementia on the verge of street destitution, [people who are] mentally ill and those who have been trafficked.”
Jillian McBride, Refugee Services operations manager for British Red Cross, said that many people it worked with, relied on hosting schemes, night shelters or ended up on the streets. “Since 2014 we have seen a worsening crisis in Scotland, which increasing numbers of people presenting in our office homeless and or hungry,” she said. McBride added: “Sadly, seeing people who feeling hopeless and suicidal has become a routine occurrence within our services and we’ve had to have all of our staff and volunteers trained in suicide intervention skills.”
Scottish Refugee Council said it was also dealing with upsetting cases. It recently saw a family with two children who had had no asylum support for six months although they were eligible for it."
Its media officer Pauline Diamond Salim explained“Destitution is designed into the UK ‘s asylum system. It is a cruel, punitive policy that absolutely wrecks people’s lives. It is completely unnecessary and inhumane to force people into exploitative and dangerous situations. The UK Government uses destitution – and the threat of destitution – as a central element of its hostile environment policy.”
The British Red Cross claimed that seeing people “feeling hopeless and suicidal” as a result of destitution was a now a “routine occurrence”
Positive Action in Housing, which also helps destitute refugees and migrants, said its own most recent figures were “shockingly high”.
Refugees can find themselves destitute due to administrative delays and errors at all stages of the asylum process, and sometimes have to fight to prove their eligibility. After all appeals have been refused the Home Office insists people should return home and declares them to have no recourse to public funds (NRPF). However many people claim their lives would be in danger, if they were to return.
One refugee family who applied for help had been told it would take 26 weeks to process their claim for child benefit. Also highlighted was the rise in grants required to pay for travel to Liverpool – as since 2015 those wishing to submit fresh claims or further submissions must travel there. The Home Office does not provide travel expenses even to those who are destitute.
In April 2014 a face-to-face support and advocacy service, run by Scottish Refugee Council and funded by the Home Office, was replaced by a UK phone line run by Migrant Help on a reduced grant from for the UK Government department.
“In an age when information sharing is so incredibly easy, it is absolutely crazy that we are putting people through this journey, which is at best inconvenient and expensive and at worst dangerous and psychologically damaging,” RST Coordinator Zoe Holliday said.
She claimed that the government had done “a great PR job” of celebrating the successful resettlement of Syrian refugees, supported through the UNHCR’s Vulnerable Persons Resettlement programme. However, for an estimated 3,500 asylum seekers housed in Glasgow – whose claims are processed while in the UK – Holliday claimed the experience was “bureaucratic, unpredictable and profoundly upsetting”.
Positive Action in Housing Director Robina Qureshi said: “The [UK] Government appears to be ripping support away when people are fast tracked into refusal, leaving people in a kind of shock as to what to do next. The stress is unimaginable.” She claimed charities were being left to “pick up the pieces” of the failing asylum policy. “This seems to be the growing trend of government,” Quereshi said. She added: “to leave the basic humanitarian needs to be provided by charity and faith groups and ordinary citizens. “We have been charged with the care of very vulnerable groups – children, older people with suspected dementia on the verge of street destitution, [people who are] mentally ill and those who have been trafficked.”
Jillian McBride, Refugee Services operations manager for British Red Cross, said that many people it worked with, relied on hosting schemes, night shelters or ended up on the streets. “Since 2014 we have seen a worsening crisis in Scotland, which increasing numbers of people presenting in our office homeless and or hungry,” she said. McBride added: “Sadly, seeing people who feeling hopeless and suicidal has become a routine occurrence within our services and we’ve had to have all of our staff and volunteers trained in suicide intervention skills.”
Scottish Refugee Council said it was also dealing with upsetting cases. It recently saw a family with two children who had had no asylum support for six months although they were eligible for it."
Its media officer Pauline Diamond Salim explained“Destitution is designed into the UK ‘s asylum system. It is a cruel, punitive policy that absolutely wrecks people’s lives. It is completely unnecessary and inhumane to force people into exploitative and dangerous situations. The UK Government uses destitution – and the threat of destitution – as a central element of its hostile environment policy.”
https://theferret.scot/scotland-refugee-destitution/
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