Hello and welcome to the Migration Also podcast. I'm Rob McNeil and I'm Jackie Broadhead and Jackie.
Today we're talking about housing and Oxfords.
Rather excitingly for those of us who live here. And how this relates to migration and asylum issues.
So, Jackie, let me start by asking you the very basic question Why Oxford and in fact, why housing?
Yeah, I think this is a I think, quite an exciting podcast for us because we're zooming in on Oxford as a case study, you know,
thinking about what it means to consider the affordability and accessibility of housing for newcomers,
um, in our own city and the impact that the type of city that Oxford is.
Um, everybody who lives and works here will know about the affordability challenges of housing in Oxford.
And then what does that mean when we're thinking about, um, accommodation for all newcomers,
but in particular for asylum seekers and for refugees and what some of the challenges have been.
So trying to make that link between very specific, very targeted housing for one group, but where that sits in a city that, you know,
some people have described as having a housing crisis, um,
and in particular housing kind of affordability crisis and what that effectively does and where some of the solutions might be.
You know, housing often feels like a completely intractable policy problem, particularly around affordability.
So if you're trying to solve some of the problems in one small part of the system, can you do that?
Or do you have to think about the whole thing in the round to be able to, to kind of tackle some of those issues?
And if you do have to think about tackling housing affordability for the whole of the city,
doesn't that feel like a kind of overwhelming policy problem that you're never going to be able to tackle for one particular group?
And that's those different levels we thought would be really interesting to tackle through the prism of one city.
And because of our biases, the Migration Oxford podcast, we've we've chosen to do that with Oxford.
So can you just do me a favour and just explain a little bit about how the system
for asylum housing actually works in the UK and what's changed in recent times?
Yes, this is really important, I think, for the context of this discussion,
because both the system in the UK is very particular and there have been some really big changes.
So the first thing to say is that housing for asylum seekers isn't controlled locally.
It's not the responsibility of the local council, for example.
Um, it's controlled nationally by the Home Office and through a number of private providers who find accommodation,
often in competition with the council or with other private landlords, particularly when housing is scarce.
And that's one of the reasons why we really wanted to link asylum seeker housing through to broader questions of housing affordability,
because the housing of asylum seekers isn't in a bubble, it's sitting within the same, um, provision of housing that's that's happening for everyone.
And as a consequence of that, the Home Office have taken quite a few policy decisions recently, broadly speaking,
to move asylum seekers out of more sort of community based housing and into different types of solutions.
So whether that might be former military barracks, whether that might be a kind of really extensive use of hotels,
or whether that is most recently and, and most kind of notoriously, I would say,
the very short lived booby Stockholm barge that was used to house, uh,
a number of asylum seekers for a very short time before it was discovered that there was the Legionella bacteria and it had to be evacuated.
So this is a really big shift to say, actually, you know, if we think about it, we step back.
This is simply saying we're not going to focus on having asylum seekers within communities.
We're going to focus on them being kind of somewhere over there.
But over there is always still within a community.
Um, it just is often very far from Oxford, because in a place like Oxford,
where there's incredibly expensive housing, um, it's unlikely that you're going to find those sorts of areas.
Um, at the same time, there've been some other big changes that are really affecting asylum seekers and refugees.
Um, for unaccompanied asylum seeking children, uh, the policy of the Home Office placing them in hotels rather than in foster care,
something that is the responsibility of the previously was the responsibility of the local authority.
And last but not least, when people get a decision, when they move from being an asylum seeker to being a refugee.
The Home Office recently has changed the policy of giving around 28 days for people to be able to find accommodation within the community,
and they've moved that down to seven days,
a really short amount of time to kind of get all of the paperwork in place to be able to kind of find that sustainable solution.
And all of these things, I think, feed into how we talk about both the housing.
Tuition for asylum seekers and refugees in Oxford.
And then link that into just the process of finding housing and the affordability of housing in the city itself.
A of somewhat different but related shift has been.
The University of Oxford has recently been awarded this university sanctuary status.
So can you just explain a little bit about what that is and what that what that means for fair housing for asylum seekers and refugees in the city?
Absolutely. I think it would be kind of remiss, certainly,
for us to talk about housing and asylum seekers within Oxford and not talk about the role of the university and the role that the university has.
I mean, within the housing market in general, obviously, but also the role that it can play, particularly for refugees.
And what it means if you become a university of sanctuary.
Is that just a symbolic thing, or does it have kind of practical changes that might be seen for some of the kind of newcomers in the city?
Obviously, the, um, the university is a very significant employer of newcomers.
And one of the things that we talk about in the podcast is the way that that
community of people from all around the world who live in Oxford via the university,
the way that that might create an atmosphere of welcoming and an atmosphere of a sanctuary.
Um, but more practically, we might look at things like, um, the, uh, Ukraine Sanctuary Scholars Program.
Um, so the ways in which we might be having people coming to the university and supported practically by the university,
um, but they're very small numbers. And given that this is quite a recent thing for the university,
I think there is something about what the role of Oxford itself in looking at its role in housing more
generally and in providing a kind of atmosphere of sanctuary and welcoming for people who might be scholars.
So people who are coming here. Um, under the the Scholars at Risk program, for example,
but also for asylum seekers who aren't associated with the university pathway but whom have a link to the city,
because this is where they've been, they've been placed.
And therefore the university forms a huge part of the the life of the city, and so can help to create that atmosphere of sanctuary and welcoming.
Well, on that note, I think it's time to move over and speak to our brilliant panellists.
I'm joined by Tiger Hills, a co-founder of the Spatial Action Lab, an urban political geographer at the University of Oxford.
Harry Reid, policy and advocacy co-ordinator. Asylum, welcome and Jack, a volunteer at asylum welcome right here in Oxford Tiger.
We all know that Oxford is facing a crisis of affordable housing,
and we're going to talk today a little bit about how that intersects with housing for migrants and newcomers.
Can you tell us a little bit about what some of the main housing challenges are in a city like Oxford?
Yeah. Um, sure. So I think to place this kind of whole conversation into some context,
it's important to to recognise that the issue of housing availability and affordability, you know, isn't unique to Oxford.
Um, but what I would say is, within the wider UK housing crisis, Oxford represents a particularly acute case.
So Oxford is the least affordable, um, UK city for housing, with average house prices over 15 times the average salary.
Um, that's in 2022. Um, and the cost of housing, as well as a shortfall in council housing,
puts homeownership out of the reach for many people in Oxford and pushes them into a very competitive rental market.
So the percentage of households that rent their home in Oxford is around 30%, as compared to, say, 20% in the whole of England.
Um, and renting in Oxford is particularly expensive.
We have some of the highest, um, kind of monthly rents in the whole of the southeast.
If we think about Oxford's housing landscape specifically, we do have kind of a unique factor,
which is the presence of the two universities, both of which are actively kind of, um, increasing their student populations.
And this does drive private rental costs up.
Um, as well as presenting another hurdle for the city council when they look to build um, Council of Affordable Housing.
So what we see in Oxford, unfortunately, is that people are either pushed out of living in the city or pushed out of housing altogether,
and homelessness is kind of a real concern. Um, so just to give some context around that, you know, in the first quarter of this year,
around 79 households were estimated to be homeless as compared to 43 last year.
And we don't have precise figures for Oxford, but we do know from homeless accounts in London that migrants make up 50% of that.
So really, that's where kind of this whole conversation started for us.
It's kind of startling that we don't necessarily even have the estimates for the way that that impacts migrant communities in Oxford.
Harry, I wonder if you could just give us a sense of how.
Prices of affordable housing for everyone across the city impacts migrants in particular.
So there's a crossover between the crisis in affordable housing in general in Oxford and then the crisis for people,
particularly who are coming out of asylum accommodation because their refugee status has been granted.
So if we think about what a person needs when they're entering the private rental market,
and I say private rental because the number of people entering council housing is so extremely small that the
vast majority of our clients do go into the private rented sector and they require an income or bank statements,
particularly as the number of landlords who accept universal credit is very low.
They require references from previous landlords, a guarantor, a deposit, um, English language skills to be able to navigate the system,
IT skills and access to a computer to be able to search on Rightmove and everything else.
Uh, ID and ideally a credit history.
These are things which this particular client group does not obtain very easily.
And the inflexibility in the system, which is to do with the high demand on housing,
means that they just end up at the bottom of the pile competing with, you know, professionals.
People are working full time. You know, what would be considered by landlords to be more desirable candidates?
And it just means that this client group is pushed into temporary accommodation, potentially sofa surfing, homelessness and even rough sleeping.
Do you think that it's mainly a case of it being kind of more acute for people in that in those circumstances,
but effectively the kind of same issues that are facing everybody?
Or are there kind of very particular challenges for people either, um, coming through the asylum system or newcomer arrivals in general?
A lot of the issues do affect everybody, and maybe there are additional layers that might not be measurable,
but to do with perceptions, prejudices, discrimination that might be going on behind the scenes that we can't necessarily measure.
There are particular issues which affect refugee populations, including no recourse to public funds, not having the right to work,
not having that history of being in the UK and where people are living in home office accommodation.
A lack of clarity around what happens to them.
For example, um, young people in supported accommodation, uh, supported by housing benefit.
But if they begin working, they lose the housing benefit and they can no longer afford that support accommodation.
And that means that for those people, actually getting a job can lead to homelessness, uh, lead to eviction because they can't pay their rent.
And then being on the street and then most likely losing their job. So it's a vicious cycle there of, um,
not being able to find an employment situation that they're earning enough to pay the
equivalent of the housing benefit for the supportive accommodation that they're in.
There's the general accommodation issues that are happening across Oxford.
And then there's also this very specific asylum accommodation that is a kind of centralised thing that's procured by the Home Office.
Um, and that's been in the news a lot recently, um,
with moves by the government to remove some of the kind of protections for that accommodation, including increasing occupancy, um,
eroding some of the kind of basic health and safety standards, um,
and also just moving people who are claiming asylum out of kind of more community settings and into things like barracks and,
and others that we might talk about.
Jack, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that and, and how that has kind of affected you on a day to day basis?
Uh, yes. Um, when it comes to the, uh, the accommodation in Oxford, uh, at the moment, I think, uh,
there are more than 650 people, uh, who lives in the, uh, Home Office in Oxfordshire and therefore hotels as well.
And then, uh, compared to the, uh, the fact that statically in back in 2019,
there were only 50 people sadam seekers who lives in uh home office support accommodation,
but now it's more than 12 times of the the population back in 2019.
So when people arrive here there is no rights to choose where you live or uh, what kind of accommodation would you like.
And you need to show them that you are destitute, and then they're going to give you,
uh, an accommodation and they have to share with you have to share rooms with people.
And roughly the room, the square feet of the room is about, uh, two feet square room.
And then you have to share with somebody else, uh, with strangers. And there are some people under 18 who have to live in those kind of accommodation.
And yeah, when it comes to safeguarding, safeguarding rules.
And I said there's no privacy, lack of privacy.
And it's kind of stressful living with somebody who we have come through a very traumatic, uh, situation back in their country.
So it's so quiet, crowded, so crowded.
And, um, there was no choice basis. And it can affect you psychologically, mentally.
And it keeps you awake. Yeah. It's kind of I would say it's, um, torturing people, um, psychologically and mentally.
Harry, there have been big changes that have happened in asylum accommodation,
kind of moving from more community based settings and an increasing sense of pressure from the system.
What do you think some of the causes of that? Um, why are we seeing this move towards increasing occupancy, moving out of community settings?
The, the type of things that Jack has spoken kind of powerfully about.
Are they inevitable in a, in a housing crisis or are they choices that are being made?
I think that what we're seeing today is compounded by a number of government initiatives and new policies which have been introduced.
So most recently the Illegal Migration Act, um, which states that people who arrive in the UK by unsafe routes or irregularly,
or what the government would refer to as illegally, do not have the right to claim asylum in the UK and must be immediately put into detention,
and then kept there until such point as they can be removed from the UK.
Um, so far as people who look at the policies, analyse it,
and from the perspective of a charity who's trying to understand how to best support our clients in this political.
We can't understand how that's going to happen, how that many people are going to be put into this type of temporary accommodation and
then sent to a third country when no agreements are currently in place for that to happen.
So for as long as the political environment is just focussed on putting people into temporary accommodation in order to remove them from the country,
there will be these huge numbers of people in unsuitable accommodation that includes hotels.
That includes barges, it includes military accommodation.
Whatever new system the government develops in order to keep large numbers of people accommodated once.
Um, but this is a political choice not to move people more quickly through the system.
There are alternatives. And just recently, the government published its Alternative to Detention pilot project.
But we have not been able to read the report on it.
Um, the conservative government agreed to do four pilot projects for alternatives to detention.
They have currently run two. And the second one, the results are being published, but we're not able to see them.
So it's clear from that that there are alternatives.
Um, but these do not seem to be being prioritised.
What seems to be being prioritised is the spectacle of holding large numbers of people in one place and pointing to these people and saying,
these guys are the problem. When it's far more complex than that.
Tiger. Sometimes it feels like there's the kind of political imperative that Harry was talking about really powerfully.
But then it does intersect with housing affordability crisis that you've spoken about.
And so when we're talking about an affordable housing crisis, and then we add migration into the mix,
that's a very real kind of policy problem that maybe doesn't have easy solutions.
What are some of the things that you have been looking at as to how a city like Oxford could both tackle an affordability crisis within housing,
and provide the kind of community based support for newcomers and asylum seekers
that might actually improve some of the situations that we've heard about.
I think that's a really pertinent point around kind of how those two things overlap.
Housing affordability becomes this kind of front line,
or potentially flashpoint for creating conflict between the kind of local community and new arrivals in Oxford,
because, as you say, there's kind of pressure on everyone living in Oxford or everyone who wants to live in Oxford.
And then there's this perception that more people are arriving and it's a supply and demand issue.
So I think, you know, housing and thinking about housing is a really important kind of moment in that,
in that debate, in that conversation, in terms of where I would see kind of solutions coming in.
I think, you know, we have to recognise that it is a particularly bleak landscape for asylum seekers at the moment in terms of their housing,
um, and home situation.
And so one of the things that we've been trying to explore is how we can create other spaces in the city that are more welcoming and that
can kind of supplement or at least provide a space of kind of community and belonging and welcome outside of the home or the hotel.
I don't have a suggestion as to a housing policy solution, but how can we fill in some of those gaps?
Is something that we've wanted to explore. And Jack, from your experience in participating in these um, workshops to explore community spaces,
can you tell us about what has been going on in Oxford and what makes these type of community spaces welcoming?
There's been lots of, uh, lots of community, um, activities around Oxford, and I think they're kind of welcoming,
uh, more people, uh, with refugees background in the southern background.
And. I would like to mention about churches and music groups and, and then and I said I'd work on myself because they were coming people.
And it's also a place to meet new people who are who have more sympathise with
more sympathy about your your situation and your contemporary issues about,
uh, this whole situation. And I think Oxford is quite a nice place in terms of welcoming people because it's
I see it's a diversity and lots of people come here and then and lots of students
who is some understand the situation of the refugees and asylum seekers already
thinking about this balance between almost working around a housing crisis,
creating other types of spaces versus actually kind of creating sustainable programs.
You mentioned the home offices pilot.
You mentioned we might think about community hosting schemes, as we've seen through the homes for Ukraine program,
um, or other kind of ways in which we might be able to improve the situation more systemically,
like changes to the local housing allowance, so that the number of houses or the stock of houses that are available to people might change.
You know, where do you see that kind of energy of asylum?
Welcome going at the moment, and the type of changes that you would be keen to see.
So this is always a difficult question to answer because the simple answer is more availability of more affordable housing,
but it's almost so obvious that it's not worth saying.
And because it's such a huge task, it potentially could seem unrealistic.
And it is for an organisation as small as us.
So putting to the side the fact that we're never going to find a real systemic solution unless we have more affordable housing in the city,
then some other things that we could work on in the meantime would be finding ways to upskill people when they're in the asylum system,
to develop the skills to be able to enter the private rental market when they have the right to do so, which includes IT skills.
It includes understanding how the system works, preparing some of that documentation that they might not have access to,
and also managing expectations because there's a perception that council
housing is the only solution and people are very suspicious of private rental.
I think we need to let people know that the likelihood of having a council house is extremely small,
and so they need to start looking at other options as soon as they can.
What we would love to see is more compassionate landlords. And so that's landlords who are willing to rent up the council rates, uh,
in order to allow people on universal Credit or on low income to be able to have an affordable property.
We hope to resolve some of these issues around people who go into work losing their benefits,
also losing their ability to pay for their accommodation.
That seems like something very simple, and it's the case for young people in supported accommodation.
It's also the case with people in home office accommodation. There's currently not a lot of clarity around the policies for that,
so not having the right to work is another big issue that we're very passionate about campaigning for.
But there is a big overlap, not only in that when people don't have the right to work and they leave the job market,
then they then don't have the proof to show that they're responsible people who are going to pay their rent.
And but it also means that when eventually they do get the right to work in home office accommodation,
maybe because they've been in the UK for over a year, or maybe because the visa conditions prior to claiming asylum allow them to work.
Um, they can risk losing their accommodation because they've started working.
And that seems to be in opposition to the priorities for people integrating,
becoming part of the community, contributing to the community around them.
Um, so there are a number of different areas beyond just the fact that we want to see more affordable accommodation, that we can start campaigning on,
uh, working with our clients, on just having a roof over their head, which is stable, secure, and it's not going to disappear suddenly.
So many of the issues for the people who come to asylum.
Welcome to speak to us. The housing is at the core. If you don't feel safe in the place where you live,
if you've got black mould and you have a child and that child is getting ill because you're being exploited by a rogue landlord,
because they're the only person you can find who's going to rent you a property, then suddenly your immigration status seems more difficult.
Finding work is more difficult. Finding education for your children is more difficult.
It just is at the basis of feeling safe and feeling like you have somewhere to live that is not going to suddenly disappear,
just makes life in every other aspect more liveable.
Absolutely Jack. We probably can't have this conversation in the UK at the moment without talking a little bit about the baby.
Stockholm. This is the barge that the government procured as part of its plans for the accommodation of asylum.
Because we know that 14 people in asylum accommodation in Oxford have received letters to move on to the baby.
Stockholm. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about this and how that's affecting people seeking asylum in Oxford?
Yeah, it was about, uh, a couple of weeks ago that we got the bars later at night after 7:00,
and then the receptionist, they told us that the bus would pick you up in the morning.
So you have to you have to get ready before the best came. So there was no time to,
to talk to good advice to our solicitors and to talk to somebody else to get a news suggestion about how we're going to deal with this, uh, letter.
And there was, there was no time to you the letter at all, because we get the letter to 7:00 at night and the bus would pick us up in the morning.
So there was no time to appeal the letter at all. And then they didn't give us no choice.
And then, um, it was a very short period of time of notice that you're going to move the bus.
And because there is one reason that I could I would like to mention is, uh, you came here in Oxford and you communities,
so you have friends and you try to contribute more in the communities the way you could.
And then and then the government just people randomly.
So it doesn't make sense. I mean, uh, some people who got the letter already got the questionnaire and then they still got the parts letter.
So they're supposed to be in the, uh, sort of support accommodation for, for a couple of weeks until the decision has been made.
So I see there's no point how they choose people and why they choose people to join.
They just did randomly and. Yeah. And they've been.
So the case is still on. So just to get ready to uh, for for the notice to move to the boards again in the few weeks.
So yeah. Thanks, Jack.
Tiger, just to finish with you, I think we've heard so powerfully from Jack about the contrast between a kind of national
system that isn't linked to a community and isn't about kind of building a place of welcome.
And we've talked about the particular challenges for Oxford.
Do you think Oxford is a particularly good or particular bad place for this type of innovation
around trying to solve some of these intractable questions around housing and affordability?
What motivated the Oxford spatial Action? That was a recognition that Oxford is imbued with the politics of the university.
And so often, as researchers and university members, we turn and look to study elsewhere,
and we forget some of these more critical issues that are happening,
um, not just in our own backyard, but the were complicit in, in some ways, being part of that community.
That to be said, I think this has two impacts on whether Oxford is a welcoming space or not,
because I've already spoken to the ways in which the university does impact the affordability of housing in Oxford.
But the university also is filled with students and staff who are supportive of creating a
welcoming environment and I think are politically aware of some of these kind of issues.
You know what came out of the workshops with asylum Welcome clients,
is that there was a sense that there were particular pockets of Oxford that were very welcoming, you know, asylum welcoming a key one.
But also participants spoke to open craft nights that were happening at I think it was the missing being, um,
and a sense of not feeling unsafe when walking down the streets and people being
generally quite friendly in Oxford towards asylum seekers and new arrivals.
Um, so I think it's important to kind of remind us that, you know, office is a welcoming place,
despite kind of the broader sort of national landscape that can feel as though our government is trying to separate people.
I think that's a great place for us to leave it.
Focusing right back in on Oxford. Thanks so much to all of you.
You've been listening to the Migration Oxford podcast. I'm Robert Neill and I'm Jacqui Broadhead.