Migration News: “A Friend in Every Town”: On Asylum Accommodation and Friendships

In the UK, accommodation is an important part of Governmental support for people seeking asylum. If a person seeking asylum cannot support themselves and cannot find a place to stay with family or friends, then the UK Government will be responsible for housing them. 

In practice, this means that the Government can - and does - move asylum seekers across the country. A person seeking asylum can be moved to other accommodation, sometimes in a different city, while waiting for their claims to be processed. They will first be put in initial accommodation, which can be a hostel or a hotel, for an indeterminate length of time, until a place in dispersal accommodation can be allocated to them. 

Dispersal accommodation is a more long-term temporary accommodation. After moving out of the initial accommodation, the person seeking asylum will stay in dispersal accommodation until their claim has been determined. However, it is not always possible for one to stay in the same accommodation throughout the whole decision-making process. 

Since asylum seekers cannot choose where to stay, the long decision process and the move can cause additional stress and uncertainty to these new-arrivals: you may try to make friends and to take part in community life and activities. But you may also have to move at short notice to a new place, where the friendships and local support networks you rebuilt here in the UK become out of reach again. 

In this long journey of migration, we are all fellow travellers. While needs may vary, everyone needs the welcome and support of the local community. The Welcome Churches Network offers an asylum seeker referral service between local churches and organisations across UK cities. With this service, churches and case workers can refer and connect people seeking asylum who are being moved from their cities with churches and trained volunteers in the new town or city. In this way, we work to help make sure that people seeking asylum will be able to find new local support as soon as they arrive, and help them to minimise the disruptions and stress these moves can cause.  

Please support the work of Welcome Churches so that more people from Hong Kong, as well as those from different countries, can receive support from the local communities.