Mears’ AASC Contract Delivery Director, Amarjit Bain’s, responded to Positive Action in Housing about our concerns about the way people are being transferred from hotels to homes – claiming they transfers are conducted in a “reasonable way”. Below are extracts from our reply on August 14:
It is unreasonable to leave a human being in the dark about where s/he is being moved to, who s/he must share with or where s/he is going to live.
Mears claims to give 7 days notice before moving people . To the contrary, I our experience people are being left in the dark about where they will be moved to, with no knowledge of the living conditions, or the demeanour of the person they are forced to share with. They don’t get an address or even an indication of the area. They are often asked to sign on the doorstep of the new accommodation – after packing their belongings, and moving out of hotel rooms.
When your bag is packed and you depend on the home office for your basic human rights then it’s hard to say no. So it is understandable when someone accepts dirty accommodation, for fear that they may be left destitute otherwise.
Those who refused to stay in dirty accommodation subsequently received a “Failure to Travel” letter from the Home Office.
Some Mears staff are reported to have said “you have no choice” when people complained about the state of accommodation they are about to be moved into.
None of this is “reasonable”.
Over one third of hotel asylum seekers are our service users, seeking emergency support and supported by a Glasgow wide volunteer network of 173 members divided into area groups and ready to give their own testimony. Yet this is not our contract. We have seen and documented the evidence. We continue to.
In response, Mears Group implies that it would be irresponsible “to be offering people viewings of different properties, as this is simply not the safest thing to do in the current climate and would significantly delay moving people out of hotels”.
Yet Mears had no problem with uprooting vulnerable people at the height of the Lockdown out of their homes and into hotels where social distancing is impossible esp in lifts and dining areas and told to confine themselves to their rooms.
This also served to create potential clusters of virus outbreak all over the city when hotels were being emptied to prevent exactly this scenario.
This happened at a time (March 2020) when an emergency field hospital was being constructed at the SECC , and a mortuary for 1000 dead at Hillington.
It also happened at a time when Mears reportedly reneged on contracts (through two internediary companies) with serviced accommodation providers in Glasgow who had available accommodation for asylum seekers and therefore there was no need to uproot anyone – at the height of a lockdown.
Is this a responsible way of behaving during a Lockdown? This needs to be investigated.
If it was not safe for the public to be in hotels during a global pandemic, then it was not safe for asylum seekers either.
Many of “us” have talked about how difficult it is to be home and not go out during Lockdown. What is it like to be confined to just four walls (and no money) for months on end?
A suicidal Syrian refugee Adnan Walid Elbi – known to the Home office as having attempted suicide previously – was one of those whom Mears uprooted with less than an hours notice and bundled into a van with 4 or 5 others to be moved to the Mclays guest house. He was 30 years old and died alone in Room 50 of the hotel. That Room was then given to another refugee who reported that he was very disturbed about being placed there.
The inappropriate crowding of large numbers of people into one building – especially those with their own past trauma of persecution or torture – does not allow for peaceful living conditions. Around 90 people – including lone women, survivors of torture, victims of trafficking and unaccompanied young people – were packed in at Park Inn.
Mears claimed that the meagre support of £5.39 a day was removed from people so they would not catch a virus from cash handling.
Firstly, such advice was not given to the general public – to stop handling/receiving cash, so why would such advice be relevant for asylum seekers? They are human too. Why the differential treatment?
Secondly, refugees did not receive cash before being moved to hotels, they received a card – an Aspen card – or ASDA vouchers.
Therefore, it stands to reason, that the only logical explanation for withdrawing people’s money was to save hundreds of thousands of pounds on top of the hundreds of thousands being saved by crowding people into empty hotels at rock bottom prices when there was no market for rooms .
We disagree that Mears staff source “suitable asylum accommodation that is safe, habitable and fit for purpose and will meet all contractual requirement and regulatory standards. I do want to reassure you that if service users raise any issues with their accommodation, either with Mears directly, or through Migrant Help, or indeed if you pass these on to us, we will always work to address these.”
We have photographic evidence from service users , yet when this has been raised – Mears press office says “we don’t recognise this”. I will take that to mean Mears refuses to admit liability as they are hardly likely to have personally visited the flats we are concerned about. The attitude seems to be one of disbelieving asylum seekers if it exposes Mears failures. (Hardly good customer service).
Take for example the incident of August 3rd, Mr. AF and on August 4th, Mr. G who were both moved to 76 H Street. They were both granted their request to be found accommodation elsewhere: the reason was dirty accommodation and a man who appeared aggressive and hostile, unstable and did not speak the same language.
When this first happened, F stated that “even the housing officer could see the dirt and the attitude of the man” and he returned.
K was not so lucky and endured a night of fear, until we booked him a taxi back to Tartan Lodge early next morning.
After Park Inn it’s important people are listened to. But as is quite the norm, we get denial and dismissal and undermining of the service user – repeatedly and ad nauseum.
We refute the assertion that “all accommodation is deep cleaned”. We have seen too many pictures suggesting otherwise.
If they bothered to listen, instead of going on the defensive against asylum seekers, volunteers and charity organisations working on the ground, then things could get resolved. But the Mears £1.2B contract appears to take prescedence. Reminds me of a blog written by the resident of Grenfell. They were dismissed and undermined too. Look what happened there. And look what’s happening here.
Robina Qureshi
(the picture is of dirty accommodation which two women asylum seekers from Park Inn were placed in last month).