CARF consider the government's claim that asylum-seekers would be properly welcomed by local consortia and settled in good quality accommodation is a hollow joke. CARF reports that in Liverpool, asylum-seekers daren't complain about appalling living conditions for fear of a hostile response. Stairs are littered with rubbish, including needles and drugs. Water does not reach the top floors. There have been infestations of fleas and mosquitoes.
Landlords barge in to private rooms.
There have been assaults. Much of the accommodation asylum-seekers are placed in by local authorities is privately owned. The government was very keen to involve the private sector in its 'partnership for social housing'. But the lack of adequate vetting of the providers or of the accommodation on offer is in danger of creating a system of extortion. In these conditions, where poverty, isolation and stigma combine, one refugee has already tried to throw himself from the top of the block where he lives, and two others have been admitted to psychiatric hospitals.