Asylum Housing – South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG)

By Admin28th January 20240Asylum Housing, Mears

The Two-Tier System of Housing Safety Standards

Authored by Holly Rooke, a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield, this blog examines the implications of a two-tier system in housing safety standards, advocating for comprehensive reforms to ensure the well-being of residents…

By Admin19th May 20230Asylum Housing, Barnsley, Mears, Sheffield

Will Government attacks on asylum tenants succeed?

This week the Government announced plans to remove basic protections to asylum tenants including safety regulations and protections against overcrowded conditions. SYMAAG has worked in solidarity with asylum tenants for safe and dignified asylum accommodation…

By Admin15th April 20200Asylum Housing, Campaigns, Mears

How Mears are putting asylum tenants in danger

Along with asylum tenants, SYMAAG has long documented conditions in asylum housing in Yorkshire and the north east. We assumed that when Mears took over the asylum housing contract in our region from G4S in…

By Admin10th April 20200Asylum Housing, Campaigns, Mears

Protect asylum residents – Close Urban House in Wakefield.

Asylum residents in Urban House Initial Accommodation Centre in Wakefield are living in overcrowded conditions which endanger their lives. For the past two months as Covid-19 has become a pandemic, people in Urban House hostel…

By Admin31st March 20200Asylum Housing

Don’t Cut Us Off. Mears: Install WiFi Internet in all Asylum Housing! Sign the petition

We demand Mears provide free WiFi in all of their housing urgently, so that residents can contact support workers, lawyers, family in other countries, access medical information, education and entertainment. Sign the petition here The Mears…

By Admin31st March 20200Asylum Housing

‘How do we wash our hands with no soap in the bathrooms?’

The appalling, overcrowded, unhygienic housing offered to some asylum seekers and their young children is putting them at especial risk of Covid-19. A refusal of insanitary accommodation leads to threats of homelessness. John Grayson of…

By Admin18th February 20200Asylum Housing

Like a prison: discussions with people inside Urban House Initial Accommodation Centre, Wakefield

Written by John Grayson ‘We could take this place, which is like a prison, for three or four weeks but not for months and months’ – Barry, a businessman from the Middle East I was…

By Admin7th February 20200Asylum Housing

Is this what we paid £1.15 billion for? Concerns grow over conditions at Urban House

Complaints about conditions in Urban House Initial Accommodation in Wakefield have been mounting over the past weeks and months. Dirty toilets and washrooms, overcrowding, very poor food and above all the long wait to be…

By Admin28th August 20190Asylum Housing, Sheffield

Sheffield: Hostile Environment or City of Sanctuary?

When is a City of Sanctuary not a City of Sanctuary? When it colludes with Immigration Compliance and Enforcement bodies by sharing information on its residents who are undocumented migrants. Sheffield City Council (SCC) has…

By Admin15th January 20190Asylum Housing, Campaigns, G4S

“G4S tenants will be dancing in the streets”

After a six year campaign by asylum tenants G4S have lost their contracts to run asylum housing. From September 2019 tenants will not have “a prison guard as a landlord” The new 10 year £4…

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