Trend report: rise in homelessness among asylum seekers

The use of hotels has come into sharp focus following protests outside a number of them after an asylum seeker was charged with sexual assault.

The figures do not say how many homeless asylum seekers had previously lived in hotels, but separate government figures show how hotel use has grown. The statistics show that five per cent of asylum seekers were housed in contingency accommodation – principally hotels – at the start of 2020. This rose to 47 per cent by late 2023, then fell to 37 per cent by the end of 2024.

There are three key reasons for the spike in homelessness among people required to leave Home Office asylum accommodation.

One is changes in the notice period asylum seekers are given to find a new place to live after being told to leave Home Office accommodation. This had been 28 days, but this was dropped to seven in August 2023.

“That’s a very short amount of time to present to homelessness services, get assessed and get benefits in order,” says Jacqui Broadhead, director of the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity at the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society.

The seven-day notice period ended in December 2023 and was moved back to 28 days. Subsequently the Labour government trialed a 56-day notice period from December 2024, which is still in effect. This was supposed be in place until the end of the year, but in August the government announced it would revert to 28 days.

Another problem is the demand for temporary accommodation for all groups of homeless people.

The number of people in temporary accommodation continues to reach new highs from already record-breaking levels. There were 131,140 households in temporary accommodation on 31 March 2025, according to the government’s statutory homelessness statistics. The number was up 2.6 per cent from the previous quarter and up 11.8 per cent from the same time last year.

Consequently, it is increasingly difficult for people leaving Home Office accommodation to find somewhere else to live.

“Previously there was possibly a little more slack in the temporary accommodation system, but there is not now,” Ms Broadhead says.

A policy that resulted in a large number of people being granted asylum at the same time also created spikes in demand for homelessness services at the local level. Streamlined asylum processing, which started in February 2023, was aimed at speeding up decisions on asylum applications from countries where claims were likely to be granted by having claimants fill out a questionnaire rather than wait for long periods for an interview.

“It was focused on claims that had been in the system for a long time,” Ms Broadhead explains. “It was a way of accepting claims quicker that would be accepted anyway.”

As a result, a lot of people were granted asylum at the same time and presented to local homelessness services simultaneously. 

Newer policies that could have an impact on homelessness among former asylum seekers include a pilot scheme testing several models of providing asylum accommodation. One model under consideration could see the Home Office provide capital funding to councils to buy, build or renovate new homes to lease to the Home Office as asylum accommodation. At the end of the lease, the council could take back the homes.

The Home Office’s contracts with its current accommodation providers are due to come to an end in 2029, but they have a break clause next year.

Dame Angela Eagle, the then-minister for border security and asylum at the Home Office, told a select committee in June that the pilots were intended to give the government “choices as the break clauses approach”.

However, there are questions about whether people will oppose rented housing for asylum seekers in their area. There have already been protests in a number of places over proposals to house asylum seekers in flats.

Similarly, will competition from Home Office contractors push up the cost of rented accommodation both for people seeking housing and councils trying to house people experiencing homelessness?