Sheffield gets funding to improve ‘horrific’ asylum seeker accommodation support

There are around 1,300 asylum seekers in Sheffield living all over the city, except in five wards.

This is run by the Home Office but the Government is now giving local authorities funding to better support people.

It follows an increase in the number of asylum seekers in recent years, putting pressure on services and wraparound support.

Sheffield Council officers said Government policy to date failed to recognise the costs associated with increased demand on services despite calls from local authorities.

Officers said the funding – expected to be a minimum £657,000 in-year – was a ‘welcome, although tentative, step’ in readdressing inequality between asylum seekers and refugee support.

Council officer Beth Storm said: “This funding will be significant to enable systemic change and an important step in placing the foundations for an integrated, prosperous, inclusive city.”

She added: “People will continue to seek asylum and refuge. They will continue to arrive in our city, whether that be self-directed, or via government routing.

“Strategic work is ongoing, with a medium-long term horizon, about how best the city can respond effectively to those seeking asylum and refuge in the city.

“Ensuring a good quality, consistent and effective response is vital to our collective success. We need to be positioned to support inclusivity, empowering individuals, and families to become part of the Sheffield community, able to contribute positively to the social and economic fabric of the city.”

Asylum seekers starving in Sheffield accommodation

Dr Rizwana Lala, who is also running to be Labour’s candidate for Sheffield Central, detailed the experiences of severely malnourished asylum seekers living in Home Office accommodation during a the latest full council meeting.

On behalf of Medact Sheffield, she said: “We as frontline NHS workers are raising serious concerns about the welfare of those seeking asylum in Sheffield, in particular those who are currently residing in Home Office accommodation.

“The use of unsuitable accommodation is well documented in Sheffield and we know this can lead to tragic consequences.

“Recently we have come across many instances of unsuitable accommodation. We have been working with migrant organisations who are telling us that GPs are unwilling to go into the accommodation because it is so dirty and unsanitary that they are worried about the welfare of other patients through infectious diseases.”

She shared the story of a 17-year-old girl who had severe malnutrition and trauma because she was not fed properly and despite being only 17 she had no support worker assigned to her.

Dr Lala then shared the story of an extremely vulnerable older woman with dementia who also had severe malnutrition. She said the woman needed to be fed with a medical feed but the Home Office did not provide it, leaving her son to chew food and feed it to her instead.

“I know this is really graphic but people need to understand the conditions people are living in Sheffield accommodation,” Dr Lala said. “It is really upsetting as frontline health workers when we are coming across these stories.”