London: UK councils have requested a delay in the deadline for evicting Afghan refugees from hotels because they claim the current schedule will result in homelessness.
Senior council members reportedly told Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer that they don't have enough housing to accommodate Afghan refugees, many of whom previously worked for British forces or the embassy in Kabul before the Taliban took control of the nation in 2021.
Thousands of Afghans are paying a high price for temporary hotel housing—the UK tax payer. Many have been informed that they must vacate this facility by August.
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In a conference call on Thursday, Mercer was informed that given the way people and their families are being treated, the program known as Operation Warm Welcome, which houses Afghan refugees in the UK, should actually be called Operation Cold Shoulder.
Attendees claimed that Mercer had made a commitment to maintain hotel rooms as a "buffer" to accommodate any additional influx of refugees into the UK, but he also claimed to have "few answers" about how the plan to permanently house Afghans should operate and "no real perception of the housing crisis" Britain is currently experiencing.
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Milton Keynes Council leader Peter Marland said to The Guardian: "We already have 800 local families residing in temporary housing and there are not nearly enough homes to meet demand.
"In the past few months alone, 50 Afghan nationals have also shown up as homeless; some of them found housing, but were later evicted.
"Rents are increasing, some landlords are selling their properties due to rising mortgage rates, and the money from the central government might only be able to buy us a small number of additional properties at most. The situation is extremely challenging, and I am unable to see a clear resolution.
To move and rehouse many Afghan migrants, local councils have received additional funding from the federal government, but it is unclear how long this funding will be available or who will be in charge of moving them.
"Our staff have worked so hard to provide the best care possible for Afghan people here, and this arbitrary deadline, along with the threat of eviction, threatens to undo it," said Joanna Midgley, deputy leader of Manchester City Council.
The message I received from the majority of the callers was that there needs to be more time and flexibility.
"It's not that we don't want to get Afghans out of hotels; in fact, we've found new housing for 40% of them since May.
"We can't just magically find housing that doesn't exist or won't be affordable when the extra funding to top off rents runs out," the speaker said.
Masood, an Afghan refugee, told The Guardian that many guests at the Cardiff hotel where he is staying are under a lot of stress because of the approaching deadline and that many of them spend "90 percent of their time looking for (alternative) accommodation."
In the hotel lobby, he observed, "Everyone is gathered together using their smartphones to search for housing on Zoopla, Rightmove, and other websites."
Masood added that it is even more challenging to find long-term housing due to a lack of available employment.
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With all of its financial, human, and technological resources, the government was unable to find housing for all of us over the course of more than a year, he said. "How can families who are unfamiliar with the system and the location be expected to find places in such a short notice time?" he asked.
According to a Home Office representative, hotels were "never designed to be long-term accommodation" for newly settled Afghans. The spokesperson continued, "That is why we have announced a plan, backed by £285m ($366.5 million) of new funding, to speed up the resettlement of Afghan nationals into long-term homes."
There is a lot of government assistance available, and we will keep trying our best to assist Afghan families in rebuilding their lives here.