Boaz Parliamentary Event

In October, several of the team from Boaz travelled to Parliament to meet with MPs about the findings and recommendations in our new report From surviving to thriving: preventing homelessness in Greater Manchester among people recently granted refugee status. 

The event, which was hosted by Afzal Khan (the MP for Manchester Rusholme), was also an opportunity for MPs to meet with two individuals who became homeless after being granted refugee status and to understand more about their experiences and learn how they as MPs can help to affect positive change at a policy level.

Eleven MPs attended the event, including several from Greater Manchester (Afzal Khan, Jeff Smith, Yasmin Qureshi, James Frith, Mike Kane, Kirith Entwistle and Lisa Smart). We were also joined by Abtisam Mohamed and Laura Kyrke-Smith, members of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) for refugees and migration, whose role is to strengthen the voices of people with refugee status by fostering debate and raising awareness of related issues in Parliament. Baroness Lister of Burtersett, a member of the House of Lords, was also in attendance and is known for her work championing a permanent 56-day move-on period. 

The report presents findings from a one-year pilot (funded by Greater Manchester Combined Authority), which helped secure private rented housing for more than 90 individuals with refugee status across Bolton, Bury, Manchester and Oldham. It was encouraging that several MPs attended whose constituencies are within those boroughs, but that MPs from other regions (including Shockat Adam from representing Leicester South and Steve Witherden representing Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) also attended, interested to understand whether the model of the project could be replicated in their areas. 

For Boaz this event was the first opportunity that we have had to host an event in Parliament. As an organisation we are primarily placed to affect regional policy change, but the findings in our report clearly demonstrated that changes at a national policy level are desperately needed to prevent individuals with newly granted refugee status from becoming homeless. 

The event therefore gave us the chance to talk to MPs about the recommendations in our report, such as the difference that a 56-day move-on period makes to people’s lives and reforms to aspects of the asylum system that would impact on successful post-positive decision move-on. The involvement and participation at the event of individuals who have experienced homelessness and who have encountered the project was crucial. Engaging with MPs, they were able to articulate, through their lived experiences, the firsthand impact that national policies have had on their own lives.

We hope that this event is the start of some meaningful relationships forged with MPs that will enable us to generate greater political interest in the issue of homelessness among people newly granted refugee status. We intend to harness the connections made to facilitate opportunities for MPs to hold government to account (for example, asking oral questions in Parliament to scrutinise government policy). We will build on the connections made with APPG members and Baroness Lister of Burtersett to understand where we, working alongside others, can advocate for positive policy change.

For Boaz, this event was also an opportunity for MPs to hear more about a regional placed-based response to a national housing crisis. We were keen to demonstrate, through our report, how homelessness among people newly granted refugee status can be addressed and how meaningful place-based housing solutions can be found to meet specific challenges that councils are facing. We will take up, and explore, opportunities with MPs to further develop and expand this model. 

In the current climate, where people seeking asylum and those with refugee status face an increasingly hostile environment, the event was also an important opportunity for us to share the concerns that we have recently voiced regarding the political and media discourse towards people in need of refugee protection. It was encouraging to hear MPs say that they too are deeply concerned by the rhetoric and feel a responsibility to speak out. Part of our work now is to ensure that those sentiments are translated into meaningful actions.