Two Worlds

A blog about UK housing, Latin America, migration and the environment

  • Home
  • Housing
  • Migration
  • Housing and migration publications
  • About
  • Contact
You are here: Home > Migration > Grant Shapps’ ‘beds in sheds’ taskforce: the ingredients for success

Grant Shapps’ ‘beds in sheds’ taskforce: the ingredients for success

June 19, 2012

Migrant seasonal agricultural workers

Migrant workers are often forced to live in accommodation provided by their employers, who also act as ‘landlords’. Photograph: David Wootton / Alamy/Alamy

Grant Shapps’ campaign to tackle “beds in sheds” has already provoked a lot of comment, much of it pointing out that the issue is not confined to migrants. In Newham, we now know of a tenant reportedly living in a walk-in freezer.

Official recognition of the problem is welcome. In February, the Housing and Migration Network called for action on beds in sheds and other unsuitable accommodation: garages and outbuildings in cities; barns, containers and defunct caravans in rural areas. In London, people have resorted to camping out in semi-public spaces such as the sheltered space under flyovers. A co-ordinated response is certainly needed.

However, there are some major issues with the way this problem is tackled. Migrant community organisations and support groups must be involved with this new scheme if it is to have any chance of meeting the needs of vulnerable people, and securing the benefits of local knowledge in implementing it. With their help and advice, a national initiative can deal with unpopular environmental hazards and eyesores while benefiting those people who are very vulnerably housed and at risk of becoming rough sleepers.

Success will depend on building trust and communication, so that enforcement of proper rules about suitable accommodation does not inadvertently increase the number of homeless households.

In some areas, local authorities have built up a lot of expertise and any national scheme should tap into this. Councils such as Hastings and East Cambridgeshire employ specialist staff to deal with migrants and have produced training material and guidance for environmental health officers. Services like these may now have stopped or curtailed.

If councils receiving extra funding through the “beds in sheds taskforce” used it to develop their expertise in the housing conditions of migrant groups, and then shard examples of good and best practice across the sector.

It seems Shapps’ taskforce will have dual objectives: closing illegal accommodation, but also checking immigration status and dealing with undocumented or other migrants with no right to stay in the UK. The second objective risks undermining the first as the two issues require different approaches.

The communities affected – who often have a very good picture of what is happening locally – must be confident that complaints reported will lead to action against the perpetrators of the exploitation, not the victims.

The experience of migrant communities with the police and immigration officials is often not a happy one, even for those with every right to live and work here. The new scheme should be directed at the accommodation issue alone.

Of course, migrants and other tenants of illegal structures are likely to be living there out of desperation. They may be employed by their “landlord” and judge that they have no other options when it comes to their housing. Careful preparation of any intervention, involving housing options services and migrant support and advice, will be required and time for this preparation must planned in. The need for new low-cost accommodation for migrants working on low wages is a critical issue, as is shelter for those who are destitute or close to destitute who otherwise risk sleeping out.

If Shapps’ scheme can bring housing and homelessness expertise together with migrant community groups and those skilled in advising migrants it has a much better chance of success.

Original post and comments: Guardian Housing Network

Category: Migration | Tags: homelessness, private rented sector

« Previous Next »

Subscribe

Subscribe to the Two Worlds blog and we'll send you an email alert when we publish a new post. Please review our Privacy Policy if you have any questions or concerns.

Categories

  • Housing
  • Migration
  • Latin America
  • Masaya project updates
  • Energy and the environment
  • Central America wildlife
  • Book reviews
  • Obituaries

Tags

allocations ALMOs Amazon river Argentina armadillos asylum beds in sheds Berta Cáceres birds Bolivar borrowing rules Bosawás Brazil budget butterflies caribbean census chile climate change Colombia community cohesion coronavirus Costa Rica council housing Cuba daily life destitution dictators drugs economics Ecuador El Salvador energy efficiency env environment Green Deal Guatemala Gypsies and Travellers Haiti homelessness homeownership Honduras housing housing associations housing benefit housing finance housing i housing investment housing market housing policy hum human rights iguanas immigration checks India Indigenous people inequality integration interoceanic canal investment Ireland Latin America Latin writers local authorities Malvinas Masaya media Mexico migration migration policy migration statistics mining model cities Nicaragua Nicaragua crisis Nicaraguan elections Northern Ireland outsourcing panama Paraguay pension funds planning private rented sector public transport race refugees regeneration rents right to buy right to rent Scotland sloths slums solar energy Spain Spanish conquest stock transfer syria tenancy reform tenant involvement transport ukraine US intervention Venezuela Vista Alegre volcanoes welfare reform

Blogroll

  • Blogs for the London Review of Books
  • Articles for The Guardian
  • Blogs for Open Democracy
  • Blogs for Council on Hemispheric Affairs
  • Articles for Counterpunch
  • Articles for The Grayzone
  • Articles for NACLA
  • Posts for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
  • Articles for Global Research
  • Articles for LA Progressive
  • Two Worlds on Substack

Related websites

  • Chartered Institute of Housing
  • Housing Rights
  • Leicester Masaya Link Group
  • Council on Hemispheric Affairs
  • UK Housing Review
Housing Guardian contributor

Admin

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
John Perry John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on
UK housing and migration issues and writes about those
and other topics covered in this blog.
Copyright © 2012- Two Worlds. Privacy & Cookie Policy. Powered by WordPress and Hybrid.