Transforming housing systems – equality, justice, and fairness for all

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In 2021, as the global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has persisted, many of our grantee partners across the UK and the US have focused on ensuring safe and secure homes for migrant communities, particularly for those who are undocumented, such as refugees, asylum seekers, and those with uncertain immigration status.

Sayeda was one of these people. Escaping an abusive marriage, the local council in East London and other service providers refused to provide her support. Because her visa was attached to her husband’s, her status in the UK was uncertain, and she did not have access to public funds. Pregnant and homeless, she found herself on the street.

Sayeda approached Praxis, a not-for-profit organisation for migrants and refugees, for help, and the legal team worked with her to challenge her status. In the UK, the immigration policy No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) excludes people with certain migration statuses from accessing aspects of social security, including people who are fleeing from or who are survivors of abuse. Praxis made sure that Sayeda was safely housed, first in a refuge, and then in Praxis’s housing project. After a few months, Sayeda’s immigration status changed and she was allowed to remain in the UK. Able to access public funds, she moved into mainstream, safe housing with her baby, Ruli. “I was alone, pregnant, on the streets during the pandemic, with no support,” says Sayeda. “If Praxis hadn’t been there, what would have happened to me? Domestic abuse survivors have nowhere to go – we can’t go back to our husbands and to our countries, it’s unsafe for us and we would fall back into abuse. Everyone should have access to support when they face domestic abuse – no matter where we are from or what kind of papers we have.”

Throughout the Covid-19 lockdown in 2021, Praxis continued to provide essential services for migrants and refugees in London, while also working towards systemic change. By addressing the housing needs of migrant women and children who face destitution, Praxis has learned that people have a greater chance of resolving their uncertain immigration status and securing safe housing, if they receive early access to immigration advice.

Praxis has learned from supporting women like Sayeda, and raised awareness of the critical difference early immigration advice can have in preventing homelessness for people with NRPF. This saves the local authorities time and money. As a result, the local authorities that Praxis works with increasingly recognise immigration advice as integral to the services it offers migrant communities. Recently, Praxis set up a NRPF Action Group to tackle the inequality created by the NRPF rule. The group is made up of migrants fighting for equality, justice, and fairness for all. You can read the group’s manifesto, Living with Dignity: A Campaign to End No Recourse to Public Funds Policy, here: www.praxis.org.uk/campaigning

In Scotland, Homeless Network Scotland is also working, as part of a consortium, to identify collective actions that will end homelessness for migrant people left destitute due to the NRPF policy. With the support of four facilitators who have lived experience of homelessness, the consortium has co-designed the Fair Ways initiative. This is a whole systems approach, which means responsibility for housing migrants with NRPF is shared with the Scottish Refugee Council, the Refugee Survival Trust, Safe in Scotland, Simon Community Scotland, and Turning Point Scotland. These various organisations specialise in supporting, advising, and accommodating people seeking asylum. Together they work to ensure that people are provided with secure housing and access to essential services, support, and advice – in efforts to reach the ambitious but achievable aim of ending destitution in Scotland.

Across the Atlantic in the US, HIAS Pennsylvania works to provide legal and social services to lowincome and at-risk migrants and refugees. In summer 2021, as the crisis in Afghanistan unfolded, the organisation stepped up to provide Afghan refugees with both legal and social support. In September 2021, it significantly expanded its legal service by recruiting and training 600 attorneys to represent US Afghan residents, fighting to secure the safe exit of their relatives out of Afghanistan. HIAS PA’s own office manager’s wife and children, who were resettled in Philadelphia in 2019, were trapped in Kabul and had a harrowing escape. HIAS PA resettled newly arrived Afghan refugees daily throughout October 2021. Recognising a need to make sure they are supported through an expediated asylum claim process, HIAS PA has also trained pro bono attorneys in asylum law.

The Right to the City Alliance is a US-based national alliance with a strong commitment to migrant justice. Migrants (especially undocumented migrants of colour) are regularly taken advantage of by landlords or left out of traditional affordable housing programmes, and are a big priority for Right to the City’s member groups, with many working at the intersection of housing justice and migrant rights. Two of these are 9to5 Colorado, a membership organisation that specialises in supporting working women, and Inquilnxs Unidxs Por Justica (IX), which works to transform the Minneapolis housing system. 9to5 organises migrants, many of whom are undocumented, in mobile home communities, thus helping to stop the displacement of their communities. By turning mobile home parks into co-ops, it prevents the land from being sold on the speculative market. Similarly, IX supported a group of migrant residents living in an apartment block to fight back against a landlord who would not carry out repairs on the property and who was unjustly evicting people. IX pressured the landlord through the courts and public education campaigns into selling the property to IX, which will better take care of the tenants.

In Oak’s Housing and Homelessness Programme, we support organisations that use their understanding of individual problems that people experience, to expose and change faults in systems. We remain deeply grateful for the energy and commitment of all our partners, who, as the pandemic has persisted, continue to provide essential support to their communities, while challenging the systems that make people homeless in the first place. Collectively they have continued to improve and increase rights for renters, as well as access to secure housing.