We’re using Refugee Week as a way to explain how the work of LASSN has changed during Lockdown. Each day we’re offering examples of how we’ve adapted what we do, to make sure asylum seekers and refugees and other migrants at risk of harm remain supported, empowered, and integrated.
What’s changed?
Since Lockdown, we’ve put Emergency/night-to-night Hosting on hold. Hosting has always been about what is do-able, and we will never put pressure on Hosts to host. Even so, we managed to get everyone we knew into longer-term placements before closing to new referrals.
One of our Hosting Coordinators – who arrange matches on day to day basis – captured some of her thoughts during the last days before lockdown
It’s become a cliche to say we are living in extraordinary times, but, we certainly are. In amongst the extraordinary anxiety and some extraordinary silliness, the extraordinariness of Grace hosting has come shining through.
I had the pleasure of being Coordinator on a day when some of the restrictions on social contact and movement were beginning to kick in. It wasn’t easy, asking if volunteers were able to host that night. But every volunteer I contacted responded quickly and with care. Some were apologetic (absolutely no need to apologise) but because of their particular vulnerability, had to pull back from hosting. Others offered to host and, where they could, offered additional nights so that guests were shielded from having to move around. Everyone wanted to do what they could to help.
This meant we started Lockdown with 10 people staying with Hosting households, and 4 people staying at the newly opened Grace House.
We supplied guests with accessible information about COVID-19 and helped them to learn the new rules about social distancing, hand-washing, and their responsibilities to other members of their household. This was a big change. Our hosting guidance encouraged Guests to spend most of their days outside the house and to come back in the evening. Now, Hosts were asking Guests to stay at home all the time and to drastically reduce contact with the outside world.
3 months down the line, 4 of these arrangements are no longer in place – all 4 people have accommodation elsewhere (either with friends, relatives, or accommodated by the Council under the Everybody In arrangements)
Lockdown meant that most hostels and night shelters were closed overnight, and the Council placed a total of 220 people into hotels, apartments, and other temporary accommodation. This included around 20 asylum seekers with No Recourse to Public Funds in a Hostel in Holbeck, 11 of whom had previously stayed in the WYDAN Nightshelter.
Hosting During Lockdown
A host writes
My guest and I are both deemed vulnerable and are self isolating together. We sit in the garden in the mornings drinking posh coffee ie.percolated. We enjoyed the sun yesterday. I take out my papers and crosswords and he gets lots of calls from his friends who are lovely and all pass on good wishes to me. My guest told me how they want us all to drink coffee together when all this is over.
My guest has mended my garden fence, helped me clear out a cupboard used as a dump but now he has put in new flooring. As we speak he is doing a temporary repair to a broken armchair I managed to demolish by leaning on it last night!
He makes a big casserole dish of pasta or rice with vegetables on Sunday to eat for dinner in the evening which lasts him all week and for brunch lots of breakfast cereals mixed with porridge and fruit.
We have a routine which balances time together and time apart. TV is for the evening. He likes Homeland and we are now on series 5. He thinks Carrie is a very fast woman! We alternate with a lighter movie. Wizard of Oz was yesterday! WE WILL SURVIVE!
Life at Grace House
We currently have 3 guests living in Grace House. Everyone is getting on well and other than a daily walk or gardening are staying in the house.
Through very generous donations, the house is well stocked with food and guests text an occasional shopping ‘wish’ list to help us in our selection of free food. We recently had such a generous offer of a weekly box of fruit and vegetables that will be donated and delivered to their door.
The House is set up for Zoom house meetings and one to one support sessions delivered by Zoom
There is an amazing small team of volunteers that provide support to the guests:
Grace House opened its doors to 4 asylum-seeking guests in February. Jo put together a House Support volunteer team of 5, which she asked me to be a part of. In the few weeks before lock-down, our roles involved regular weekly visits to Grace House. I went on a Monday and together with Sanjeev (from PAFRAS), ran a group for the guests. The focus was on supporting them, both individually and as a group, as they navigated their way through the ups and downs of living together. We decided to incorporate a shared lunch, which we cooked together (in my case, learning a lot about other cuisines). Monday lunchtimes quickly became my weekly culinary highlight!
There was lots of good talking at those meetings – some letting off of steam, some sharing of current frustrations, some laughter and enjoyment of each others stories. Two of the guests were keen to grow vegetables, another to do some artwork, and another loves to cook as much as possible. They all spoke of their gratitude for the opportunity of a 6 month stay in Grace House, which is a lovely spacious house in a friendly neighbourhood.
Thankfully the group gelled well, as then the Pandemic hit and they have had to go into lock-down together, with all the additional challenges that brings! Our weekly visits have had to go ‘virtual’ and I have joined the other volunteers in being part of a regular phone-support schedule. Every week each of us offer the residents a phone-chat, in the hope that this will help them continue to feel actively supported. Two of them are socially isolating due to health vulnerabilities, and so it’s vital to ensure their food supplies are maintained. Several volunteers are dropping off staples, and the residents let us know what they’re in need of. So far so good…
The nicest occasion for me since lock-down was around Easter, when I decided to bake a cake and take it over Grace House. The kitchen window opens onto the street, and one of the residents was cooking there, so we were able to catch up through the window. I was also delivering a bike-helmet, for use with the bike that another resident had recently acquired. We also had a ‘distanced’ catch-up at the front door. It was lovely to see them in person, if only for a few minutes.
They say they feel safe and supported at Grace House, and I feel so glad that we were at least able to have a few weeks of helping them settle in, before this difficult ‘new normal’ hit us all. I think the residents do feel surrounded by the love and support of the ‘LASSN family’…an aim that LASSN works for in all that it does. It is a privilege to be able to play a small part, as I know many other LASSN volunteers are also doing in these difficult times.
So what’s next?
We’re still not sure when we can re-open Hosting.
We do know that even as lockdown is lifted, and people can start seeing friends and relatives again, Hosting will still pose a huge challenge. Since Grace hosting began, some Hosts have been able to offer a welcome, a meal, and a bed for the night, knowing that someone else will offer their Guest a place the following night. It’s very unlikely that these night-to-night arrangements will be possible for the foreseeable future, and we are gradually working out what might be possible, starting with our existing long-term Hosts.
As you might expect, we have used our connections and friends at the No Accommodation Network to share ideas and thoughts. NACCOM have arranged a series of national seminars on safety, risk management, where hosting Schemes from around the country to listen and learn from one another.
We have also been collaborating with partners from Council and other agencies – to work out what emergency options will be available to destitute asylum seekers in the future. The Council wants everyone who is currently accommodated by them to be rehoused at the end of lockdown (and they’re making good progress) but this still leaves the question of emergency accommodation unresolved. The resources and powers available to the Council to help people with no recourse to public funds remain unclear, and Government Ministers have yet to agree if the Government’s Rough Sleeping Taskforce will support rough sleepers who have no recourse to public funds “into long-term, safe accommodation once lockdown is lifted – preventing the vulnerable from returning to the streets.”
Grace Hosting has been the only emergency accommodation for asylum seekers with no recourse to public funds in Leeds for years, and we simply cannot operate this model without putting both guests and hosts at serious risk. And – although the WYDAN night shelter has never considered itself to be “emergency accommodation” – it’s unclear how dormitory-style sleeping arrangements can operate safely, too.
We promise that whatever comes next will be developed in close partnership with our friends in Public Health, and will be focused on helping people to get out of destitution and into stable accommodation as quickly as possible.
