No choice dispersal - making the best of a bad situation

The recent decision by East Renfrewshire to demolish bad housing instead of offering it to asylum seekers is very much welcomed. Finally a local authority took a conscientious decision not to offer bad housing to asylum seekers; this bucks the trend of dumping asylum seekers in the bad houses that noone else wants to live in. it should send a clear message to the other councils to will have to think again about the kind of housing they decide to offer asylum seekers.

If a council is going to offer empty houses to refugee communities, it should at the very least be brought up to the same standard as for ordinary council tenants. Prior to the entry of asylum seekers, the councils must PREPARE local communities and be ready to counter extremist right wing groups leafleting and myth spreading. As well as ensuring that external groups are involved, e.g. ethnic minority groups (see our directory of 400 black contacts) councils must have a STRONG STANCE ON RACIAL HARASSMENT with the use of sanctions right up to eviction of tenants who perpetrate racist attacks to send a clear message out to the community that anyone who carries out race attacks or hate campaigns on fellow tenants (including asylum seekers) puts their own tenancy agreement in jeopardy at the same time. This is part and parcel of the clear obligations placed on local authorities by section 71 of the race relations act and the race relations amendment act.

A significant percentage of asylum seekers will get refugee status or some form of indefinite or limited stay in Scotland. What message are refugee children taking from their treatment in this country if not alienation? (My generation of Scots Asians know only too well the experience of seeing our parents discriminated against and feeling hurt and bewildered at watching them take racist abuse and having to walk on and ignore it, keep their heads down for their kids sakes. I know that in many Scottish born and bred Asians, there is still today a resentment and sense of exclusion at how our parents were treated by white society and the system in earlier decades and even today). We have set them apart with the voucher system and the abuse of the term 'asylum seeker'. The tabloid headlines will remain in these children's heads and remind them in later years of what Scottish society thought of them and their parents. Once they grow up and stake their claim in this society as future taxpayers they will make sense of the injustice around them. This will have an impact on the rest of us as a society. The riots in Oldham should have resonance for communities in Scotland, it painted the same picture of racism, alienation, exclusion that has affected black communities in Scotland and is now affecting refugee communities.

People talk about social inclusion and racism getting better. Actually, judging by the current situation, racism has only resurfaced a hundred times worse than in the sixties. We all have a vested interest in making sure that we challenge the inequalities of dispersal and use our influence whether as individuals or councilors or council staff to exploit the best route possible under the current unjust system to provide housing that is equal to what we would expect for ourselves, and I know this is not going to be easy. But there has to be a better way than just dumping asylum seekers at the bottom of society and the unwanted housing pile.

R Qureshi

Positive Action in Housing

4 June 2001