City of Sanctuary wants to support and extend welcome to all who come seeking safety. Unfortunately, due to the Home Office’s inability to process claims swiftly and competently, many people are being housed in totally inappropriate hotel accommodation. If the system functioned better, people would not be housed in expensive, unsuitable, and in some cases outright dangerous, hotel accommodation.

Successive governments have failed to create a fair, just and workable asylum system, the result is a backlog of 150,000 unprocessed cases. Instead of waiting a few months for a decision on an asylum claim, people often now have to wait years. Whilst they wait, people are unable to work in paid employment and are housed in initial accommodation. The huge backlog means this initial accommodation is full, so new arrivals are now housed in hotels.  There are now three hotels in the Rugby area which are being used in this way.

Hotels are not homes. Hotels are designed for short stays and they lack the amenities we take for granted – somewhere to cook, a space away from the bedroom, washing and drying facilities etc. People have no control over their lives, and as a result their mental and physical health is damaged.  They are also often located on the outskirts of cities and towns, meaning people are isolated from the rest of the community – as is the case with one of the hotels being used in this way, just outside Rugby.  It is only thanks to an amazing yet small network of volunteers and charity groups in the Rugby area that those staying in the hotels here are receiving basic clothing and toiletries, the opportunity to do sports, arts and crafts, and ESOL activities; a place to cook their own food occasionally and the funds to do so, among other community initiatives.