Image credit:Apartment House, refugee temporary housing By Vastram/AdobeStock.com

In mid-October, refugees returned to Bibby Stockholm, the floating former prison now docked in Dorset in the UK. In August they had been evacuated from the same boat when legionella bacteria were found onboard. Now, men are again offered a place on the barge on a ‘no choice basis’.

Only men are housed on Bibby Stockholm, to avoid pressure on schools and maternity and childcare services, according to the UK government. Guidance states that vulnerable individuals, including victims of trafficking and those with serious mental health issues, should be excluded.

In response, the Home Office told Global Insight that the barge ‘provides non-detained accommodation for single adult male asylum seekers aged 18 to 65 who would otherwise be destitute. The cohort has been agreed with local authorities and health partners to mitigate the burden on local public services given this demographic makes up the great majority of those in the asylum system.’

Home Office guidance states that anyone notified that they’ll be required to live on Bibby Stockholm has five working days to challenge the decision, after which the government ‘will ensure that the hotel accommodation is no longer available for the individual’ and he will be evicted ‘within 24 hours’.

The Home Office has said that ‘all necessary tests including health, fire and water checks have been completed [on Bibby Stockholm], and are all satisfactory’.

Kolbassia Haoussou, Director of Survivor Empowerment at Freedom from Torture, a UK charity providing therapy and support to survivors of torture, says that ‘the use of barges, hotels and abandoned military bases is totally inappropriate and, for people like me who have experienced torture, war and refugee camps, they can be profoundly retraumatising’.

Haoussou describes how, each day in the charity’s therapy rooms, ‘the survivors we work with describe the horror, isolation and hopelessness that they feel when housed in places that are unsafe for them. The UK government urgently needs to stop forcing refugees into cruel and undignified accommodation, and instead house survivors in our communities, where they have a proper chance to rebuild their lives’.

The UK government’s policy towards refugees includes the Illegal Migration Act, which became law in July and would see anyone arriving in the UK illegally detained and deported to a ‘safe’ third country, which could include Rwanda – although this plan is being contested at the Supreme Court. ‘The recent introduction of the Illegal Migration Act shall hugely restrict those who can apply for asylum. This development could impact processing times. We are also likely to see an increase in those placed in removal centres, which may create further issues, for example, in providing adequate accommodation pending removal’, says Luchowa.

The UK Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, recently said she wouldn’t rule out leaving the 1951 Refugee Convention, calling it ‘outdated’. This led to a rare rebuke from the UN Refugee Agency, which emphasised the current relevance of the Convention and pointed to the high backlog of asylum applications in the UK. ‘The need is not for reform, or more restrictive interpretation, but for stronger and more consistent application of the Convention and its underlying principle of responsibility-sharing’, the agency said in a statement. ‘An appropriate response to the increase in arrivals and to the UK’s current asylum backlog would include strengthening and expediting decision-making procedures.’ Home Office statistics show a backlog of more than 175,000 asylum applications at the end of June, the highest number since records began in 2010.

In Belgium, which also has a large backlog of asylum applications, the government has said it’ll no longer provide housing for male refugees without dependents, citing a lack of space. While a court overturned the government’s decision, in practice male refugees are now on a waiting list for a place to live, leaving many homeless as winter approaches.

The federal agency Fedasil is responsible for the reception of asylum seekers in Belgium. ‘Fedasil is giving priority to families, single women and unaccompanied minors. Single men who are newcomers have to register on a waiting list. They are still entitled to medical assistance. We do however still strive to provide reception for vulnerable single men’, says Lies Gilis, a spokesperson for the agency.

In September, Belgium’s federal government said it would find 2,000 extra spaces on top of other initiatives presented in its ‘Winter Plan’. It’s uncertain whether single men would be eligible for any of these places. ‘Families, women, and children don’t need to register on the waiting list, they receive a reception place immediately’, says Gilis.

Germany is also struggling to house its refugees, due to the large volume of applications the country receives each year. The housing crisis, present in Germany as in many European countries, has exacerbated the problem. According to a report by German news outlet Deutsche Welle, a quarter of people who came to the country in 2015 and 2016 still live in refugee centres, because they haven’t been able to find appropriate housing. As a result, new arrivals spend a significant amount of time in reception centres.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has previously said that stricter asylum procedures at Europe’s borders – part of a new agreement to manage migration in the bloc currently being discussed by the European Parliament – would ease pressure on the German asylum system.

Critics say the housing problem is at least partially a question of political will, as local governments could do more.

In the Netherlands, over 20,000 people have been living in ‘inhumane conditions’ because some municipalities refuse to house them, according to the Dutch Council for Refugees, a charity supporting asylum seekers. Discussions around a law that would give the national government the power to force municipalities to provide refugees with a place to stay are ongoing.