Adi Shankara
24th July 2010, 21:08
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/16/asylum-seekers-survive-on-streets
It would be wrong to describe Abdi as poor because this suggests he doesn't have enough money to survive on, which would be to put a rather optimistic spin on his situation. He isn't poor, he just doesn't have any money at all, and hasn't done for the last six months since his asylum claim was rejected in December.
He is pragmatic and uncomplaining as he explains how he manages to subsist beyond the fringes of society, hand to mouth, on meals of bread and tuna bought with Red Cross food vouchers. He has noticed, however, that the longer he lives like this, the heavier the toll on his health.
The Red Cross today publishes an uncharacteristically hard-hitting report (http://www.redcross.org.uk/news.asp?id=104362)attacking the "shameful" way the British immigration system treats those whose claims for asylum have been denied, and who have yet to return home. Once an application is turned down, the asylum seeker loses all eligibility for accommodation and financial support. Estimates suggest that there are about 200,000 asylum seekers who receive no state support, of whom perhaps 20,000 are surviving on food provided by the Red Cross (http://www.redcross.org.uk/TLC.asp?id=89414) or other charities. The organisation compares this emergency aid distribution to the work it does in Sudan, and is calling for the government to adopt a more "humane" approach.
Once you lose your home and financial support, the priority is to find somewhere safe to sleep. Abdi has three places he sleeps regularly, and he rotates them according to weather conditions. The first is in a mosque in a suburb of Birmingham, particularly useful when there was heavy snow. To stay there, you need to go to last prayers, join the worshippers for a while and then slip away and shut yourself in a toilet cubicle. Shortly afterwards the lights are switched off and the building locked up, and there is a secure place for the night.
Anxious to avoid suspicion, he doesn't risk staying there too often. So he has also been sleeping intermittently on a flattened cardboard box at the top of a concrete stairway to a block of flats nearby. This place is sheltered from the rain, and it has the added advantage of a light bulb that can be left on or unscrewed when he wants darkness, but the neighbours are not tremendously welcoming, and he tries not to get there until he calculates they will all be asleep. When they see him, they are generally abusive and threaten to call the police. Someone has scratched "Your Dead" into the side of his cardboard container, which he has left leaning against the wall.
"They're just joking with me," he says amiably.
The third place is in a narrow alleyway between park railings and a row of back yards, a few streets away. He has hidden his sleeping bag (marked "Don't take it. Please. Homeless") underneath a heap of discarded building materials, wooden planks with protruding nails, and broken mirrored glass. The adjoining section of park is a place where teenagers hang out to take drugs in the evening, so most people prefer to avoid the area, which means he is mostly left undisturbed.
For food he goes to the Red Cross every Tuesday, where he queues up for £10 worth of Morrison's vouchers, usually alongside up to 100 other failed asylum seekers. Volunteers here used to distribute emergency handouts of £15, but funding shortages forced them to reduce this to £10. The recipients did not protest, says Joseph Nibizi, manager at the destitution clinic; they are desperately grateful for whatever help they can get.
It would be wrong to describe Abdi as poor because this suggests he doesn't have enough money to survive on, which would be to put a rather optimistic spin on his situation. He isn't poor, he just doesn't have any money at all, and hasn't done for the last six months since his asylum claim was rejected in December.
He is pragmatic and uncomplaining as he explains how he manages to subsist beyond the fringes of society, hand to mouth, on meals of bread and tuna bought with Red Cross food vouchers. He has noticed, however, that the longer he lives like this, the heavier the toll on his health.
The Red Cross today publishes an uncharacteristically hard-hitting report (http://www.redcross.org.uk/news.asp?id=104362)attacking the "shameful" way the British immigration system treats those whose claims for asylum have been denied, and who have yet to return home. Once an application is turned down, the asylum seeker loses all eligibility for accommodation and financial support. Estimates suggest that there are about 200,000 asylum seekers who receive no state support, of whom perhaps 20,000 are surviving on food provided by the Red Cross (http://www.redcross.org.uk/TLC.asp?id=89414) or other charities. The organisation compares this emergency aid distribution to the work it does in Sudan, and is calling for the government to adopt a more "humane" approach.
Once you lose your home and financial support, the priority is to find somewhere safe to sleep. Abdi has three places he sleeps regularly, and he rotates them according to weather conditions. The first is in a mosque in a suburb of Birmingham, particularly useful when there was heavy snow. To stay there, you need to go to last prayers, join the worshippers for a while and then slip away and shut yourself in a toilet cubicle. Shortly afterwards the lights are switched off and the building locked up, and there is a secure place for the night.
Anxious to avoid suspicion, he doesn't risk staying there too often. So he has also been sleeping intermittently on a flattened cardboard box at the top of a concrete stairway to a block of flats nearby. This place is sheltered from the rain, and it has the added advantage of a light bulb that can be left on or unscrewed when he wants darkness, but the neighbours are not tremendously welcoming, and he tries not to get there until he calculates they will all be asleep. When they see him, they are generally abusive and threaten to call the police. Someone has scratched "Your Dead" into the side of his cardboard container, which he has left leaning against the wall.
"They're just joking with me," he says amiably.
The third place is in a narrow alleyway between park railings and a row of back yards, a few streets away. He has hidden his sleeping bag (marked "Don't take it. Please. Homeless") underneath a heap of discarded building materials, wooden planks with protruding nails, and broken mirrored glass. The adjoining section of park is a place where teenagers hang out to take drugs in the evening, so most people prefer to avoid the area, which means he is mostly left undisturbed.
For food he goes to the Red Cross every Tuesday, where he queues up for £10 worth of Morrison's vouchers, usually alongside up to 100 other failed asylum seekers. Volunteers here used to distribute emergency handouts of £15, but funding shortages forced them to reduce this to £10. The recipients did not protest, says Joseph Nibizi, manager at the destitution clinic; they are desperately grateful for whatever help they can get.