Accommodation
This was the most contentious issue within our six weeks of meeting with the participants. So many of the participants had been, or were homeless. For them, home was something transient, a thing to yearn for. It was also in the broader sense something they’d left behind and been forced to give up. They didn’t want to talk about their current accommodation and eventually, the discussions that took place were where to go to get some shelter, a shower and hopefully some kind of safety during the hours of the night, especially in the cold of winter.
Many spoke about how and where shelter could be found in winter. Some charities help people to find a place to sleep if they turned up at a certain location each evening. They were then taken to a room, where they could sleep, out of the cold. However, men and women did not often have separate accommodation and men were known to make life difficult for women. They would sleep in the nude, expecting women to share the space with them. It was a very hard topic to vocalise for the group. The conversation was full of recriminations and it was almost impossible to get the participants to write on the topic of accommodation.
One concept that was often brought out in conversation was that there were English/British people on the streets. They couldn’t believe that natives to Britain had no home or accommodation and that they too were sleeping rough. One participant said, “I worry for them, I worry for me.” Much was talked about the people living in tents out on Piccadilly Gardens during winter, and of those in cardboard boxes or asking for spare change on the streets.
We did in the end move on to doing a Collective brain dump – Everything you need to know about places to stay. This brain dump was so that participants could know where to go to find shelter:
BOAZ Trust (https://boaztrust.org.uk/about/accommodation)
Mustard Tree – clothes, shoes, crockery, etc (https://www.mustardtree.org.uk)
Greater Manchester Winter Night Shelter (Seven Churches) (https://gmwns.wordpress.com)
- Some charities only offer shelter during the winter
The Booth Centre (https://www.boothcentre.org.uk)
Rainbow Haven Gorton & Salford (https://www.rainbowhaven.org.uk) – make referrals for temporary accommodation
Referrals
Read letters really carefully
Translation services
- Central library – charge £20
Make sure you ask for letters in your language
Home Office Housing Officer
However, bringing up the topic of accommodation clearly highlighted how places to meet (like the City of Sanctuary’s Conversation Club) are so critical to the self-worth and self-confidence of asylum seekers and refugees. They need to feel like their lives have meaning, that they are still people of worth.