Retired professor and asylum seeker fleeing death threats
Home owners offering refuge to asylum seekers
For many of us, Christmas is a time to be at home, surrounded by our family and friends.
For some of those seeking refuge in Scotland, however, the festive season will be a traumatic time, far from home and full of uncertainty.
Around 1,500 asylum seekers in Scotland will have a proper home this year, thanks to the Positive Action in Housing (PAIH) charity and their Rooms For Refugees initiative.
Pioneered by the charity’s chief executive Robina Qureshi, the idea is simple – those with a spare room are matched with a refugee or asylum seeker in need of somewhere to stay.
“New people offering rooms come forward every week, and we’ve seen a big surge especially in the run up to Christmas,” said Sunny Singh, senior case worker for Glasgow-based PAIH.
“We have a large number of hosts in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but there are people across the country opening their homes.”
In the beginning, the charity had just 200 hosts and was only Scotlandbased. But after images of Alan Kurdi, the tragic Syrian toddler whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach, went viral in 2015 they now have more than 7,000 hosts across the UK.
The most common reason for homelessness in asylum seekers occurs when their claims are refused by the Home Office. Once that happens, payments of just under £38 a week stop and they are forced to leave their accommodation.
Many appeal or resubmit claims, but, still barred from working, end up destitute in the process.
“Some people are destitute for years, decades even. And the irony is, they want to work – many are extremely well educated and had good jobs before they had to flee,” said Sunny.
“Many people physically can’t go back. Entire houses, streets and villages have been wiped out by war.
“When hosts open up their homes however, it gives people who have been denied many of the basics of life we take for granted, the chance to feel human, normal and safe again.
“A lot of these people haven’t felt that in a long time.”