Spare Room for forced migrants

IssueJuly - August 2007
Feature by Chris Gwyntopher

Forced to leave their homes to escape war, persecution, starvation, disease and environmental disaster, thousands are denied the legal right to work or claim state benefits in Britain.

Some are provided shelter by members of their own ethnic communities. Spare Room find hosts for forced migrants without any other tolerable legal means of support. For example a Tamil-speaking Muslim woman from Sri Lanka forced to work for the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) was seized and abused by Sri Lankan soldiers.

She fears the military of both communities but was refused asylum by the UK. Spare Room was able to find her a good host for just over 6 months.

To paraphrase MK Gandhi, England has enough living space for every person's need but not for every person's greed. If you have a Spare Room consider sharing it. We urgently need more people willing to be assessed as hosts and matched, as far as possible, with a guest.

Topics: Refugees