As this has been brought up a couple of times I thought I would like to explain that housing asylum seekers does not actually take anything away from the housing of British citzens.
There are an estimated 440,000 homeless people in this country, making up 184,290 households. Of these 118,700 qualify for rehousing by their local authority because they are unintentionally homeless. The remainder have usually breached their tenacies and so fofeit their right to LA housing. A further estimated 560 are sleeping rough. All of those accepted by their council get rehoused, and a recent govt charter aims for all famillies with children to not spend more than 6 weeks in a B&B before this happens.
Under the Housing Act 1996, the of majority asylum seekers are not eligible to apply for homelessness assistance and are also denied access to the housing register. Under the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 most asylum seekers also lost entitlement to the most basic benefits such as income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit. When asylum seekers are offered housing it is usually accomodation that has been turned down by a certain number of council tenants.
It is estimated that to keep up with current demand, which is highest in London and the SE 90,000 homes will need to be built each year, as of 2000/01 18,000 units of social housing were built. Redevelopment in the capial is beyond the budget of most LA.
Currently there are an estimated 753,000 empty properties in this country, and of those 623,000 are in the private sector. So over 100,000 council homes sit empty.
As I said in my earlier post for the first quater of this year there are still remaining 12,010 asylum seekers currently here.
On this statistics and the restrictions placed by the 1986 Housing Act asylum seekers are taking homes from other people?
You do not need a permanent address, such as a tenancy in your name, to claim welfare, you can put a friend's address for instance. Even if you are 16 or 17 you can get welfare if you are homeless and unable to live with your parents (the usual criteria).
Also I would like to point out that under the Race Relations Acts of 1968 & 1976 and the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 you can advertise specific gender or race if there is a vacancy, that can only be carried out by somebody of a certain gender or ethnicity, because of the nature of the work. These might include social workers or counsellors working with specific ethnic groups or lavatory attendants. I mean you want to employ a race relations officer that people from a certain community/race (say Paksitani) can liase with. You aren't going to get a very effective result if you employ somebody white. That is a the truth of the matter. Nor will you get the best support for people in need if you employ men in a shelter for battered women. Furthermore certain public sectors have a quota of ethnic minorities to recruit. The police have tradtionally been seen as a white male dominated profession and I personally don't see whats wrong with trying to correct that so that they reflect the society they are policing by specific advertising for ethnic minorities.