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our humanitarian role

refugees and asylum seekers

Since April 2000, more than 12,000 asylum seekers from 28 nationalities have been placed in Glasgow’s empty, unwanted houses under the government’s forced dispersal scheme. They are being accommodated in 2,500 units in often-deprived areas where they face epidemic levels of racist harassment and attacks. Around 50% will receive a positive decision and many will remain in Scotland, leading to a doubling in the overall minority ethnic population. Other local authorities are also accepting asylum seekers but on a much lesser scale.

There is a severe lack of resources available for asylum seekers and refugees. Asylum seekers have no right to work. They arrive with virtually no possessions. They are expected to survive on between 40% and 70% below the official UK poverty line.  They are exposed to stigmatisation and extreme impoverishment.

These changes led Positive Action in Housing to develop its services in the area of housing advice, volunteering, interpreting, outreach advice, enabling refugees to get work.

from charitable to humanitarian

Because of harsh asylum laws which forbid destitute asylum seekers from seeking housing or benefits, Positive Action in Housing has taken on a humanitarian role and actively assists destitute asylum seekers by raising donations to provide food, shelter and in same cases, pay for burial costs.

homes not prisons

We have stepped up our campaigns to challenge racism, inhuman asylum laws and so-called detention.

We set up the Dungavel Bail Fund in 2003 to assist refugees incarcerated with their families in Dungavel Removal Centre, a former prison. Since then, we have assisted many families and individuals to be settled back into their communities.