designed to establish their identity and provide them with suitable documentation, and then be granted a long-term status quickly that enables them to start to rebuild their lives. It is plainly irrational that Sudanese, Eritrean, Syrian and Afghan nationals currently spend months if not years waiting for decisions to be made on their claims without having the right to work or to any integration support. Even if some asylum cases from these countries of origin are re­fused, the applicants are often left in long-term limbo in the UK anyway, because it is difficult to enact returns to hostile countries under dictatorship or experiencing con­flict. 28 It would be dangerous and immoral to try to send these people back to their countries of origin, even if it were practically possible. Far better to start helping them into safe, productive lives within our communities as fast as possible, seeing as that is where they are more than likely to end up at any rate. A not-for-profit asylum accommodation system Asylum seekers are accommodated by the state where they would otherwise be destitute. Demands to“cut off” access to shelter are both inhumane and would utterly fail as a deterrent. The prospect relies on the unsubstantiated idea that destitution and street homelessness in the UK would be so much more unappealing than destitution in any oth­er European country that asylum seekers would simply cease to come. Of course, what would be far more likely would be that the UK would experience a dramatic in­crease in street homelessness and the associated societal ills that accompany it. Homelessness charities have warned against the scapegoating of asylum seekers for the housing crisis. 29 Establishing large tent cities of vulnerable men, women and children is not a solution to the arrival of a few tens of thousands of refugees each year. However, it is outrageous that money from the public purse is being funnelled into private firms to provide accommodation that is segregated and only available to people seeking asylum, regardless of the poor quality of the accommodation itself. A not-for­profit accommodation model managed in partnership with Local Authorities is an alternative that would not only keep resources in public hands, but have the added benefit of contributing to the creation of emergency housing that is available to any local resident on the basis of need, instead of fuelling resentment by sectioning off foreigners for cer­tain types of accommodation only. At the current time asy­lum seekers, where not segregated into hotels, are often housed in“hard to let” accommodation that is of too poor quality to be possible to rent it to British people. This means the owners of such properties are not incentivised to make improvements so that they could be dignified housing for anyone, but instead to leave the properties in a poor state, and simply house asylum seekers instead. 30 If, as proposed above, fewer people were being accommo­dated within the asylum system for long periods of time anyway, because people who are obviously refugees under­went a light-touch system, and while others were awaiting a decision they were entitled to work, accommodation costs could be drastically reduced. The funds freed up from this could be redirected into integration support to enable people to get into work, and become part of our communi­ties, as well as towards services in areas of new arrivals that benefit the entire community. Institutional accommodation in ex-military barracks and similar sites is no solution to the asylum accommodation crisis. Conditions have repeatedly been shown to be unac­ceptably poor in mass accommodation sites, 31 and mean­while hotel accommodation has become a rallying point for far-right organising and misinformation. The distressing living conditions in these facilities, including a lack of pri­vacy, poor treatment, and isolation from services create and exacerbate mental health crises among residents. 32 Accommodation for asylum seekers – whether in hotels, barracks, or rental properties – has become a money-grab ­bing opportunity for corporations ever since it was out­sourced to the private sector more than two decades ago. As companies compete to provide the lowest possible cost service, while squeezing out the largest possible profits for their shareholders, it is no wonder that conditions have de­teriorated, with 2024 being the worst year on record for deaths occurring in the asylum estate. 33 The private asylum accommodation model has siphoned huge sums of public money into the hands of three corporations in particular, Serco, Mears, and Clearsprings Ready Homes. 34 While all three of these companies have profited from housing asy­lum seekers in substandard accommodation, it is Clear­springs Ready Homes which is particularly controversial, given the obscene profits its majority shareholder has raked in through its asylum hotel contracts. Graham King, 28  https://freemovement.org.uk/the-home-office-is-leaving-thousands-of-afghans-in-limbo-in-the-uk/ 29  https://england.shelter.org.uk/were_committed_to_becoming_an_anti-racist_organisation/anti-racism_general_election/social_housing_not_scapegoating 30  https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2022/jun/poor-housing-conditions-contributes-asylum-seekers-marginalisation-uk#:~:text=Through%20case%20studies%20of%20 asylum,its%20residents%20struggle%20to%20overcome. 31  Asylum Matters(2024)‘Asylum Accommodation: Parliamentary Briefing’ webpage, accessed on: 8 August 2024. https://asylummatters.org/app/uploads/2024/01/ Asylum-Accommodation-Parliamentary-Briefing-AM-January-2024.pdf 32  Helen Bamber Foundation(2022)‘Like a prison: The negative impacts of barracks accommodation on the health of people seeking protection’, webpage last accessed: 8 August 2024. https://helenbamber.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/Like%20a%20prison_HBF%20report_Aug%202022.pdf 33  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/feb/10/record-asylum-seekers-died-2024-home-office-care 34  https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/home-offices-asylum-accommodation-contracts.pdf 8 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.