“…families don’t know where they’re going to be from one month to the next and the knock-on issue that has for children in education of having to move schools or in some instances, having to go on a long bus journey to get back to the school that they’re already attending” (PB6). There was acknowledgment among most participants that the shortage of housing was not something that could be immediately resolved by the Housing Executive: “ I know that housing are doing everything… from what I can see, everything that they need to in terms of having a roof over people’s head and a bed for children to sleep in. But it’s just more the knock-on impact of kids being out of education for months of, like, lack of stability, of adding to people’s trauma of moves of uncertainty” (CSO8). CSO10 made the point that while the shortage of housing was not an issue that could be resolved immediately, there was a lack of planning to mitigate the impact of housing moves at the time at which refugee status was granted: “… there’s enough experience to show that this is a real vulnerable time. So, although, there’s going to be cost implications, if people were given a month or something or if there was some, kind of, preparation in that” (CSO10). PB1 commented that the ideal would be to say “let’s stop moving a child to four different residences in a year” . In the meantime, the priority is for more coordination between agencies or for one agency to take charge and look at health, education and housing needs together. A huge priority at the moment was to lessen the disruption caused by housing moves, but there was limited capacity to do this. PB4 agreed that the current capacity to mitigate the impacts of transition was limited: “We’re trying to tinker around the edges and make the move on as seamless as possible and transition as seamless as possible. But the realities of the housing situation in Northern Ireland are that there’s acute pressures and needs from a homelessness perspective and a lot of the solutions just aren’t there for everyone. Not just for refugees that arrive via the asylum process but for everyone that’s homeless” (PB4). CSO5 noted, however, the need to recognise the additional challenges facing asylum seekers and refugees suddenly made homeless on receipt of their refugee status compared to other homeless people: “… that’s very difficult for any family but a family that has a job and a car and relatives nearby and whatever, you know, at least there’s a bit more resources to cope, it’s very, very, very difficult and it’s not acceptable. But newly recognised refugees wo have only recently gotten the right to work… and they don’t have a car… And their kids aren’t in school, right, so they have childcare responsibilities…” (CSO5). PB4 noted that, while transition was a challenge, there was coordination and communication with other services around housing moves: “We also have a move on group that was set up through the executive office, and that includes colleagues from the executive office, health and education… We’ve set up data sharing agreements for us to share where we have moved the family. For example, outside of their area of choice and away from school. We advise education of that to allow them to step in and respond with their own services. And likewise for health” (PB4).
PB3 noted that a particular issue was the “trajectory of movements” that a person would go through on their asylum journey, which could involve: being placed in temporary accommodation; being moved into dispersal accommodation another part of the country; if their claim was successful, being moved again into temporary accommodation in another region. PB3 noted that it was impossible in these circumstances for people’s needs to be met effectively: “we need to be mindful of stability, and the lack of housing is probably another barrier. People really can’t engage meaningfully in therapeutic support until they are feeling like… Like, think of the Maslow hierarchy of needs, so they need shelter… and stability before they can tap into the other issues” (PB3). Housing was therefore seen as a key issue underpinning integration and wellbeing. PB4 said that the issue could be particularly acute for people whose asylum claim had taken a long time to settle – individuals who had been in the system for six or seven years would find it particularly difficult to move having integrated into an area for so long. CSO4 noted that the cases of many clients they were helping remained “open” as a result of a lack of permanent housing solutions, which meant that solutions could not be put in place for people: “… all the immediate things that somebody needs to start an integration journey, to settle as a family, we can’t fulfil them and the family can’t fulfil them… the caseload of our team is getting bigger and bigger because we can’t close things because they’re open, because people, they haven’t got the accommodation” (CSO4). CSO5 pointed out that there could be a particular impact on those who were receiving specialist medical care that could not easily be transferred between trusts: “we supported a lot of people… you know, who were being told your only option is to move to this hotel in Portaferry. And they were like, but wait, you know, I’ve got regular appointments at the Ulster Hospital for XYZ and that just was not being taken into account at all, it just wasn’t accounted for” (CSO5). CSO12 made a similar point citing the example of a pregnant woman receiving specialist care: “… it was another pregnant woman who was experiencing bleeding during her pregnancy. And they [the Housing Executive] were wanting to move her out of the Belfast Trust area. And the Housing Executive told us, well, she’ll just be moved to a different hospital. But we know that it doesn’t work as simply as that… it just doesn’t work smoothly, the whole interaction with public services… it’s not as simple as you move to a new area and you’ll be linked in with all the services there” (CSO12). PB1 gave another example of the difficulties of services transferring across when a person was moved to a different area. They gave the example of young person with Special Educational Needs who had a statement of SEN that said a classroom assistant was required. The Education Authority pays for the classroom assistant and the school then recruits someone. When there was a move to a different area the original school has classroom assistant but there was no classroom assistant in the receiving school. PB6 also commented on the general barrier that housing moves could pose on the continuity of a child’s development:
Final report of the of Ombudspersons and the Protection of Refugees and Asylum Seekers (OPRAS) project | 37
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