Councils to buy empty homes to house migrants under government plans

Telegraph

3 days ago

Migrants could be housed in empty homes and properties bought by councils under government plans to slash the number of asylum hotels.
Ministers are seeking to partner with councils to buy or lease houses and vacant properties around the UK in which to place asylum seekers, amid rising anger at the use of hotels for migrants.
They are proposing pilot schemes where the Government could pay councils to buy or renovate property, which they would lease back to the Home Office to house asylum seekers.
Another model would see empty homes brought back into use for both local homeless people and asylum seekers. Government data show there are some 700,000 empty homes across England, including some 93,600 in London and 35,000 in Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool.
Officials are also targeting former tower blocks, student accommodation and old teacher training colleges for use as 'medium-sized' sites where dozens of asylum seekers could be housed.
The moves come as police are braced for fresh protests against asylum hotels this weekend, following the 16 arrests for violence at the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex, amid anger at an alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl by a 38-year-old migrant from Ethiopia.
Some 32,000 asylum seekers are being housed in around 210 hotels, according to the latest Home Office data from March. This compares with just under 30,000 in June last year, days before Labour won the election, but down from the peak of 56,000 at 400 hotels in September 2023 at a cost of £9m a day.
On Friday, the Home Office announced that asylum seekers face being made homeless if they refuse orders by officials to move out of hotels into alternative accommodation.
Hundreds of migrants refuse to be transferred every week, according to the Home Office, which is frustrating attempts to reduce the number of asylum hotels. Some hotels have been forced to remain in use for as few as three migrants due to refusals to move out.
Now, asylum seekers will be threatened with losing their taxpayer-funded accommodation and weekly £49.18 allowance if they reject a transfer request for a second time under a new 'firm-but-fair' policy to reduce the number of asylum hotels.
The search for alternative accommodation has become a priority as a record 24,000 migrants have crossed the Channel so far this year, up 50 per cent. On top of 80,000 outstanding initial asylum claims in March, there is a growing backlog of 41,000 failed asylum seekers who have appealed against the decision, with many requiring housing.
Sir Keir Starmer set out the Government's approach this week, when he told the liaison committee: 'A central focus of what we are doing is what can be built, arranged or taken by councils and repurposed. I am impatient for this change to be driven through.
'We have to take over other accommodation, and we have to drive down the asylum lists. There is no alternative... There is lots of housing in many local authorities that can be used, and we are identifying where it can be used.'
Dame Angela Eagle, the border security and asylum minister, told MPs the aim was to 'evolve' away from a 'commercial' approach using private accommodation contractors to a 'more democratically accountable' system in partnership with local councils.
It comes ahead of 'break' clauses next year where the Home Office could end its reliance on three contractors – Clearsprings, Mears and Serco – to find accommodation for asylum seekers. Around 200 councils have 'expressed interest' in running pilot schemes partnering with the Government.
'The pilots are looking at various ways to provide accommodation, for example, putting a grant to local authorities and leasing back the property. There are elements of: could we give grants to remediate void properties?' said Joanna Rowland, the Home Office's director general for customer services.
'Is there a support-only option, so we are not providing accommodation? There are a lot of ideas, but we will need those pilots to give us an evidence base for how we might want to move forward.'
Dame Angela said: 'Maybe some of the things that we develop will go to supporting local temporarily homeless people from the area in exchange for having some of the things we develop available for our own asylum seekers as well.
'It is a kind of co-operative approach, I hope, that will be more sustainable than the situation that we find ourselves in now.'
The Home Office has already faced local opposition and delays where it has attempted to set up 'medium-sized' sites. Plans to buy a 27-flat block in Fareham, Hampshire, to house 70 migrants was abandoned after a local outcry.
A 9,000-strong petition has also been raised to proposals to put 35 asylum seekers in high-street flats above a vacant shop in Waterlooville in Hampshire, while plans to house almost 700 asylum seekers in former student blocks in Huddersfield have still not gone ahead more than a year after they were first mooted.
Powers to seize properties
Islington council in north London is, however, going ahead with plans to buy back up to 900 former council houses to house both homeless people and refugees.
Angela Rayner, Communities Secretary, is also pushing for councils to get powers to seize properties that have stood empty for more than six months. The current rules only allow councils to take control of a building if it has been empty for two years and plagued by anti-social behaviour.
Her department said it was 'pure speculation' to suggest the powers would be used to repossess vacant properties for asylum accommodation.
The Home Office said it aimed 'to develop a more sustainable, long-term model of accommodation supply, which may be more locally led, should reduce competition for affordable housing, and help deliver new supply'.