Councillors write to Home Office over ‘damaging’ hotel asylum policy

Executive member for equalities, communities and inclusion Sheila Chapman at the Town Hall. Photograph: Josef Steen / free for use by LDRS partners

⁩Islington Council’s leadership has urged Home Office ministers to end the previous government’s policy of housing single adults seeking asylum in shared rooms with strangers.

Yesterday, Town Hall cabinet members wrote to Dame Angela Eagle, minister of state for border security and asylum.

They raises concerns about the risks of “violence, abuse, sexual abuse and theft” that people living in asylum hotels were facing because they had not been given their own bedrooms.

The letter, signed by council leader Cllr Una O’Halloran, equalities chief Cllr Sheila Chapman, and migrant champion Cllr Heather Staff, argued that the current policy was exacerbating the “mental health crisis” experienced by “already traumatised individuals”.

“This, in turn, causes disruption in communities living near asylum accommodation and places a burden on emergency services with frequent call-outs,” they continued.

Asylum seekers, who do not have the right to work or money to travel, were also having trouble with online learning due to a lack of quiet space, while some struggled with disturbed sleep from “unwanted noises”, councillors stated.

The Labour politicians’ letter welcomed the recent closure of the Kings Cross Road hostel, which had practiced “inhumane accommodation standards” by forcing people to share rooms with up to 12 others.

But they argued that, since demand for asylum hotels and accommodation offered by the Home Office was falling, now was an opportune moment for the government to end the use of shared bedrooms for non-relatives.

Figures released last year showed that the number of people seeking asylum and living in hotels in the borough had fallen by more than a fifth since 2023, from 565 down to 440 last June.

This mirrored a 41 per cent drop in the amount of asylum hotel occupants across the UK, from 50,500 to 29,600 in the same period.

Islington has been recognised as a ‘Borough of Sanctuary’ for its work welcoming refugees, migrants and for those seeking asylum.

On the back of this, the Town Hall has received £500,000 in grant funding to develop a programme to support residents with these backgrounds.

Efforts so far have involved recruiting 18 local residents, hailing from countries such as Afghanistan, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, to help shape the initiative.