Where will the refugees coming to the UK live?

[Meeklynamechanged]

In no way a goady thread, I fully support helping the people fleeing such horrid circumstances, but genuine question.. where will they live? Where do we put people?

Where I live we have people waiting 10 years for a council property. Most areas around the UK have a huge deficit in available housing that doesn't meet demand.

With so many families stuck in overcrowded hostels and B&B's, families of 5 in 1 bed flats, I can't see where all of the required the housing will come from?

It's a totally reasonable question. Where I live, outside the UK, we have a major housing crises. Even people moving here with money can't find houses to buy, and the rental market is nonexistent. Low income housing is unavailable and tent towns have sprung up around the city. And the rural areas are the same, which I've never seen in my lifetime.

I was a member of a local group that helps refugees come and settle here, sponsoring them and just being helpful, but we've basically stopped. We can't bring people here when we can't find a place for them to live. The government keeps talking about the importance of immigration, by which they mean economic immigrants to stimulate the economy. Great, but again, where are they supposed to hang their hats?

Even if they build housing, materials costs now are so high that new construction costs a fortune.

I’ve volunteered my spare room. I imagine a lot of people will do the same.

@Firstbornunicorn

I’ve volunteered my spare room. I imagine a lot of people will do the same.

I didn’t even know you could do this! I will have a spare room after Christmas - do you have a link for the charity you used?

@SmokedDuck

It's a totally reasonable question. Where I live, outside the UK, we have a major housing crises. Even people moving here with money can't find houses to buy, and the rental market is nonexistent. Low income housing is unavailable and tent towns have sprung up around the city. And the rural areas are the same, which I've never seen in my lifetime.

I was a member of a local group that helps refugees come and settle here, sponsoring them and just being helpful, but we've basically stopped. We can't bring people here when we can't find a place for them to live. The government keeps talking about the importance of immigration, by which they mean economic immigrants to stimulate the economy. Great, but again, where are they supposed to hang their hats?

Even if they build housing, materials costs now are so high that new construction costs a fortune.

It's so difficult isn't it?

I live in London where the social housing crisis is probably the worst in the UK, but whilst I know London isn't representative of everywhere in England there's definitely a theme up and down the country of a significant shortage of social housing and hundreds of thousands of people on waiting lists, stuck in inadequate homes.

Do the government consider these factors when accepting large amounts of refugees? Surely anywhere has got to be better than their home country at the moment but they still need reasonable accommodation and from what I can see we just don't have it

Do private landlords help?

Birmingham apparently they only have 1400 homeless so they are taking them too the suggestion that they be placed in an area with spare housing is apparently appalling (and yes there are some still)

@Firstbornunicorn

I’ve volunteered my spare room. I imagine a lot of people will do the same.

To whom?

Are most of the refugees from Afghanistan male?

I’d take ‘family of five in a one bedroom flat’ over ‘being killed for going to school’, so I don’t think it much matters where refugees go, so long as it’s somewhere safe.

@Firstbornunicorn

I’ve volunteered my spare room. I imagine a lot of people will do the same.

What a lovely thing to do. I had no idea that was a thing.

I wish I was in a position to be able to do the same.

I have two spare rooms, no way would I offer them to strangers to me, who probably need a lot of help that I can't provide.

Atm they are staying in cheap hotels paid for by the home office.

Councils are searching for private rented houses for them, which will again be funded by central govt paying rent.

The sad truth is that the people who are getting out of AFG will tend to be the better off ones who will often have family contacts in this country, will have at least one person who speaks good English (they will all have worked for U.K. forces) and who are expected to be able to find jobs and be self sufficient relatively soon.

@AttaGirrrrl

I’d take ‘family of five in a one bedroom flat’ over ‘being killed for going to school’, so I don’t think it much matters where refugees go, so long as it’s somewhere safe.

Of course a family of 5 being in a 1 bad flat is a much better scenario, my point was that families of 5 being in 1 bed flats is because there is nowhere else for them to go.

Even 1 bed social housing flats are hard to come by these days.

Don’t forget approx 200,000 people from Hong Kong will be arriving in the next three years or so. Build build build!

Wales. We've abolished right to buy, we're investing in social housing and we want to welcome refugees.

Private rentals, where else?

Meanwhile London is stuffed full of expensive, empty investment properties which contributes to the domestic housing shortage. We should stop courting billionaires and tax exiles and build houses for normal people to live in.

There are lots of places around the U.K that have the opposite problem - people moving away. However there aren't many jobs there so idk what they will do.

We're lucky enough to have have two spare rooms, we offer one of them to refugees and have done for a few years now. They get the support and help from the agencies that place them, all we have to do is make small talk and occasionally feed them.

There are at least two charities that do it.
Room for Refugees: www.roomforrefugees.com
Refugees at Home: www.refugeesathome.org

We're on a break at the moment as we hosted two people (one after the other) through lockdowns and it was a bit intense, plus we need to do some work on the house, but will be hosting again later in the year.

Around a million Europeans have left the UK post Brexit, 130k Corvid deaths; they must have been living somewhere. How many Afghani immigrants are you anticipating?

"The latest Office for National Statistics figures suggest that a million people have left the country (at the end of 2020 Britain had almost a million fewer non-UK-born residents than a year earlier)."

@supermoonrising

Don’t forget approx 200,000 people from Hong Kong will be arriving in the next three years or so. Build build build!

These people are very rich and can afford to buy homes. There are many already viewing/making offers...

The U,K wants their money, that's the crux of it. they're not going to get bombed tomorrow

Meanwhile London is stuffed full of expensive, empty investment properties
Good places for refugees then?

It is a valid question and one I’m normally always asking. The current situation in Afghanistan is entirely of the U.K.’s and US’s making though.

It may be, but isn't always the case that refugees are better off coming here to inadequacy housing. I've known of a few refugees who, though they really wanted to move to a place where they could live permanently and begin to build a life, they were in ok housing in an intermediate country. And were not at all happy to come here and be stuck in an inadequate place with bedbugs.

I'd also ask, if people are willing to give up their second bedroom to refugees, how about giving it up to people on the wait lists for housing?

@PenCreed

We're lucky enough to have have two spare rooms, we offer one of them to refugees and have done for a few years now. They get the support and help from the agencies that place them, all we have to do is make small talk and occasionally feed them.

There are at least two charities that do it.
Room for Refugees: www.roomforrefugees.com
Refugees at Home: www.refugeesathome.org

We're on a break at the moment as we hosted two people (one after the other) through lockdowns and it was a bit intense, plus we need to do some work on the house, but will be hosting again later in the year.

Thank you for posting those links and hats off to you for your kindness to people in need.