LONDON: More than 1,000 Afghans who fled the Taliban for a new life in the UK are facing the threat of being made homeless after the Home Office imposed a new deadline of Dec. 15 to evict them from hotels, The Guardian reported.
The Local Government Association says some Afghans who served UK interests in Afghanistan could already be sleeping on the streets after the government forced them out of hotels more than two years after they were evacuated from Kabul.
Separate new data shows that more than 5,200 Ukrainian families are currently receiving “homelessness support,” with 4,350 identified as homeless after relationships with UK families with whom they were residing “broke down.”
Council leaders appealed to Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick on Thursday for additional funding to help accommodate Afghans and Ukrainians, but none was offered.
LGA Chairman Shaun Davies told The Guardian: “Councils are becoming increasingly concerned over the numbers of Afghan and Ukrainian families presenting as homeless, which is likely to dramatically increase when Home Office accommodation is withdrawn as a result of the current clearance of the asylum backlog.”
According to an internal LGA briefing note on the plight of Afghan refugees who arrived in the UK in 2021: “Councils remain hugely concerned that some families — some of whom are particularly vulnerable and will have ongoing medical conditions — may have to end up presenting as homeless, particularly given the lack of available housing stock for larger and multi-generational families.”
The crisis has been exacerbated by the arrival of Afghans who had been waiting for relocation in Pakistan.
The refugees are thought to have been accommodated in former Ministry of Defence buildings. However, councils suspect some will have to be resettled in hotels that the government intends on keeping free of asylum-seekers.
The first flight carrying Afghan refugees from Pakistan to the UK arrived on Friday. Another 3,200 in Pakistan are awaiting UK visas after working for the British government or the army.
The LGA briefing note added: “Afghanistan households who were not included as part of the 2021 evacuation to the UK but are entitled to come as part of the existing resettlement schemes — potentially several thousand more people — are also likely to arrive in the coming weeks.”
Veterans’ Affairs Minister Johnny Mercer said in August that if Afghans who worked for the UK government ended up homeless, he would have failed.
A government spokesperson told the Guardian: “The UK made an ambitious and generous commitment to the people of Afghanistan and, so far, we have brought around 24,600 people to safety.
“We do not recognize the Local Government Association figures as the vast majority of those still in interim accommodation have been pre-matched to settled accommodation.”
