What is destitution?

There are more than 3,000 des­ti­tute asy­lum seek­ers in Leeds, with no access to hous­ing and ben­e­fits and no right to work. They are pre­dom­i­nantly those who have reached a final neg­a­tive deci­sion on their claim for asy­lum and been told to leave the UK, but there are also many indi­vid­u­als who are await­ing a deci­sion on their right to remain in the UK.

A grow­ing body or research con­ducted by non-governmental and human­i­tar­ian organ­i­sa­tions, aca­d­e­mics and Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tees sug­gests that des­ti­tu­tion has been imple­mented as a mat­ter of pol­icy with the aim of forc­ing refused asy­lum seek­ers to leave the UK. It is a pol­icy that is failing.

Research also shows that asy­lum seek­ers remain in the UK after refusal for a num­ber of rea­sons, most com­monly because:

• they are unable to leave (e.g. they are state­less or lack travel doc­u­ments and their state of ori­gin refuses to acknowl­edge their cit­i­zen­ship), or
• they have been in the UK for a long time and have fam­ily ties here now, or
• they fear per­se­cu­tion or death if they return to their coun­try of origin.

Some even come from coun­tries to which the UK Gov­ern­ment will not send peo­ple back. Yet they still deny these peo­ple the right to work, and refuse to pro­vide them with food, money or shel­ter. Caught in Limbo, refused asy­lum seek­ers are forced into home­less­ness, hunger and ill health.

Joseph Rown­tree Char­i­ta­ble Trust Des­ti­tu­tion Inquiry

The des­ti­tu­tion of many asy­lum seek­ers in Leeds has been high­lighted by the Joseph Rown­tree Char­i­ta­ble Trust’s Des­ti­tu­tion Inquiry, which includes the commissioner’s report, Mov­ing on: from des­ti­tu­tion to con­tri­bu­tion and the research report, Des­ti­tu­tion in Leeds: the expe­ri­ences of peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum and sup­port­ing agen­cies (Lewis, 2007). The research showed that PAFRAS received 54% of vis­its by des­ti­tute asy­lum seek­ers to key agen­cies in Leeds.

Follow-up reports were pub­lished based on addi­tional stud­ies con­ducted in 2008 (More Des­ti­tu­tion in Leeds) and 2009 (Still Des­ti­tute), the lat­ter of which showed that more than a third of des­ti­tute asy­lum seek­ers sur­veyed had been des­ti­tute for over a year, with two out of every three of those made home­less orig­i­nat­ing form some of the most trou­bled parts of the world.

For fur­ther des­ti­tu­tion infor­ma­tion, down­load our brief­ing paper What is Des­ti­tu­tion? and visit our links pages.