EVERY time the doors to the Glasgow City Council meeting chamber opened on Thursday, in wafted stray notes from a brass band serenading senior citizens enjoying Christmas lunch.
It was fitting that in a week when communities gather for nativity plays and to switch on lights, Glasgow took important steps forward in bringing the community together to support people seeking asylum.
READ MORE: Glasgow asks Scottish Government for cash to house destitute asylum seekers
Westminster-controlled contracts for housing asylum seekers are due for renewal, and this week the SNP council administration brought a motion to say that without urgent change to how those contracts work, it would be difficult for Glasgow to continue as a dispersal city.
All four parties in the council also backed the administration’s call for the right to work or study for asylum seekers who have been waiting over six months for a decision on their case.
It makes no sense, economically or morally, to force people into this kind of poverty and stress – people seeking asylum should be able to study or to work while they wait.
However, while it’s absolutely right to pile the pressure on Westminster to make these changes, there’s a lot more that we could and should be doing in Scotland to resist the Tories’ hostile environment.
Only about a third of people seeking asylum receive a positive decision in their case on the first try – not because their claims are unjustified, but because the system is rigged against them.
READ MORE: Scotland must not follow the foolish path of the UK Government
Home Office inconsistency and incompetence is well-documented, but there also the problem of people not getting adequate support to fight their case.
There used to be face to face, same-day support from an advocacy organisation, helping people navigate a labyrinthine system and chase up sometimes reluctant lawyers.
However this contract was removed, and now sits with a charity that offers only a phone line.
I called this line in an emergency, with a mum and her four kids who had been given 24 hours’ notice of eviction, and I was placed 64th in the queue.
It takes on average six months, now, for people to get support, and it relies on them having a SIM card, phone credit, and the same postal address to receive documents despite Serco’s habit of moving people around.
After the protests over Serco’s plans to evict hundreds of people by changing their locks this summer, the Scottish Government gave more funding to advocacy organisations. This was necessary and welcome, but there’s so much more to do.
Glasgow is a postcode lottery of provision of support, and for people with no money for travel this matters a great deal. Our third sector do amazing, life-saving work – local charity Govan Community Project absolutely saved the day for that mum and her kids – but they are stretched unbearably thin.
All the advocacy in the world is less effective when people have to focus on immediate survival – the most urgent thing we need to do is ensure a safe place for people in crisis to stay.
READ MORE: Glasgow leads as Scotland meets Syrian refugee target three years ahead of schedule
If you get a refusal on your case, you will be evicted and you’re not eligible for mainstream homelessness support except in specific circumstances, like if there are kids involved. Otherwise, you’re on your own on the streets.
The Scottish Government has already considered this issue, as part of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group.
One of the recommendations accepted by the Government was: “Funding for short term emergency accommodation for destitute migrants who are not entitled to statutory homelessness assistance, and are currently rough sleeping or at a high and imminent risk of rough sleeping, provided alongside access to advocacy and immigration and legal advice.”
THIS week, Greens asked the Council to bring together everyone in Glasgow working to support asylum seekers to form joint proposals on how to meet this recommendation.
We need a one-stop-shop in Glasgow where asylum seekers can go for emergency accommodation, along with advocacy, immigration support and legal support, and so it was great that this motion passed.
We’re also clear that the Scottish Government needs to provide funding for this to be explored as a pilot project. The SNP’s stance of support for asylum seekers is of course welcome, but it’s funding that translates that rhetoric into reality. Greens were pleased to pass an amendment requiring the council to ask Scottish ministers for this support.
In the darkest time of the year, the Christmas light for me this week was coming home to find the clipboard I’d left outside my door, hoping for signatures from neighbours in support of a local family due in court fighting for asylum. Everybody had signed!
This is a city that knows the importance of solidarity. All I want for Christmas is for the Scottish Government to give us enough money to put that solidarity into action.
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