Diary of a night in the company of asylum seekers Walking the streets until they can be given shelter
I arrive at the shelter and already there is one man waiting outside in the rain. He is standing on the street shivering, his head bowed. People go in and out of the building used by the night shelter but he is not yet allowed access. “We have to wait until eight,” he explains. The man tells me he has been walking the streets since 8am that morning when the night shelter closed. More men arrive with bags over their shoulders and stand on the street outside. One of them approaches me, points in my face demanding to know who I am. He’s concerned that I’m a “Home Office spy”. Someone steps in to diffuse the situation and explains that the man is nervous because he was detained for two years at Dungavel before new evidence was found to support his claim for asylum. The volunteers arrive and the men traipse towards the door one by one in a dignified line. They walk straight to a gym hall where they will spend the night and mark out their territory by placing what little belongings they have on a small patch of the wooden floor. The tallest of the group reaches up and turns on the noisy fan heaters which will remain on all night. The volunteers and two of the men begin preparing food in the kitchen. The duties are carried out on a rota basis and service users are encouraged to help. The rest of us make tea and coffee in a small room with a TV in the corner. A local food bank arrives with a donation and at the same time charity ‘Bridging the Gap’ brings in bags of unwanted sandwiches from Pret a Manger. The men begin eating for the first time in many hours and each of them also squirrel away several sandwiches for the next day. The bedding store room is opened and I walk in to see an organised system of numbered mats and cubby holes containing sleeping bags, duvets and pillows. Some of the men have written their names next to a dookit and they are the first to begin arranging their bed. I find a stained mat without a number and put it on the hard floor next to my sleeping bag. Some of the men are exhausted after moving around the city all day and go straight to sleep. The rest of us return to the TV room to tuck in to tonight’s main meal – a vat of tuna pasta. The fire alarm goes off and we are ushered out to the stree. A head count is done once, twice, three times by officials at the building as everyone shivers in the rain. It turns out to be a drill and we can go back inside. Only 15 men are permitted to bed down at the night shelter even though demand is far higher. There is a murmur that the drill was intended to ensure the quota is not exceeded. Volunteers carry out one-toone consultations with each of the men throughout the night. New faces are asked to fill in a form which permits the charity to advocate for them if they are unexpectedly detained by the home office. They are also asked to reveal details of their case and this proves too much for one young man who leaves the room as he is overcome with emotion. “He spent five years as a political prisoner and was tortured every day,” explains one of the volunteers. “He finds it difficult to talk about it, which doesn’t help his case for asylum.” Only a few men remain in the TV room drinking tea and coffee and watching television. I ask one of them if they plan to get some rest. “I can’t sleep,’ he says. “It’s like psychological torture.” Many who sleep at the shelter suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and it is not uncommon for them to shout and scream in their sleep. I go to the toilets and all three sinks have ‘out of order’ signs above them. There has been a plumbing problem, according to one of the volunteers, and although the toilets work the sinks can’t be used. There are no showers so the men are unable to wash at all, or even