Rights for People Seeking Asylum

Housing4All are a group of asylum seekers and supporters campaigning to ensure that people seeking asylum in Northern Ireland are given the opportunity to lead dignified and secure lives. 

Housing4All are a group of asylum seekers and supporters campaigning to ensure that people seeking asylum in Northern Ireland are given the opportunity to lead dignified and secure lives.

The group was founded in 2015 in direct response to the deliberate state policy of enforced destitution whereby people who have had their claims for asylum refused are left street homeless even if they have further legal remedies to pursue. We mobilised on this issue and conducted surveys with destitute asylum seekers in the city of Belfast. In May 2016 we launched our first report and proposals for action. Since then we have continued to lobby both the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Department for Communities for change.

As time progressed it became clear that enforced destitution was not the only issue but rather one of a series of deliberate state policies designed to make the lives of asylum seekers unbearable. These policies have become infamously known as the hostile environment. In November 2018 we surveyed again, this time with a larger audience covering a wider range of issues. In June 2019 we launched another report A Prison without Walls which identified 6 major issues for people seeking asylum in Northern Ireland; destitution, housing conditions, food poverty, children’s rights, mental health, and the right to work. We are now in a phase of continued campaigning and monitoring of the rights of asylum seekers living here in Northern Ireland.

Publications

Report from May 2016: https://www.pprproject.org/a-place-of-refuge-report-calls-for-action-from-executive-to-end-homelessness-and-destitution

Report from June 2019: https://www.pprproject.org/resource-document/a-prison-without-walls-asylum-migration-and-human-rights