QARN backs refugee status call
Friends have welcomed a suggestion by MP Kate Green
The Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) has welcomed a suggestion made by MP Kate Green to extend the twenty-eight-day period between a person being given refugee status and being thrown out of their National Asylum Support Service (NASS) accommodation to fifty-six days.
The Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston made the suggestion to MPs at a Westminster Hall debate on refugee homelessness on 17 July.
She called for the period to be extended so there was enough time to secure a tenancy and income.
This would match the fifty-six-day period provided for under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, during which a person can be deemed ‘threatened with homelessness’.
Fred Ashmore, a member of the QARN Steering Group, told the Friend: ‘Everyone who works with refugees knows about the problem of success. We hear about those successful people who have finally won their case and have refugee status, and how they end up on the streets because it is plainly impossible to negotiate all the hurdles in twenty-eight days. Our system is impossibly difficult.’
Barbara Forbes, of the QARN Steering Group, agreed. She said: ‘In Birmingham, you have to wait until the final day and then declare yourself homeless. And then you’re likely to get stuck in a cramped hotel room (even if a family) for months on end.’
