Concern over refugees in Scarborough becoming homeless

Thousands have fled Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in April 2021

Afghan refugees could be evicted from a hotel in Scarborough, according to North Yorkshire Council.

The authority said officers were planning for a "worst-case scenario" where up to 90 people could become homeless on 16 August.

It believes the Home Office intends to close all the hotels it was using for refugees by the end of October.

It also said payments to the authority were not made on time. The Home Office said there had been "no delay".

At a meeting of North Yorkshire Council's corporate and partnerships scrutiny committee, councillors said they were worried a lot of the refugees would "present as homeless" in the coming months.

The meeting heard the council was taking part in several different schemes to offer homes to refugees and had agreed to find homes for 200 people by 2024.

However, the Home Office had put a hold on new cases coming through due to difficulties finding suitable accommodation.

Councillors were also told of the difficulty getting payments intended to support their work with refugees.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, an officer said: "We constantly find problems in terms of the Home Office not paying us on time.

"Well, they have never paid us on time, but now it's getting months and months and months before we get a payment."

They said some Afghan families arrived in January 2022, but the council only received payment three months ago.

The council said there was a lack of suitable accommodation for refugees

The meeting was told the use of hotels for Afghan refugees who had fled the Taliban was "far from ideal," but had been the only option.

Officers said there was not enough affordable, private rented accommodation available and many refugees would prefer to live in larger cities with larger Afghan communities than in North Yorkshire.

Councillors were told refugees were offered two properties and told if they did not take one they would face eviction from the hotel within 56 days, although nobody had been evicted to date.

One officer told the meeting the council's housing team had given "quite a blunt presentation" at the hotel in Scarborough about homelessness.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Financial support for North Yorkshire is managed on behalf of the Home Office by Migration Yorkshire, a local authority-led partnership which works across the whole of the Yorkshire and Humber region.

"There has been no delay on the part of the Home Office to release these funds and we will be contacting Migration Yorkshire to check that all financial support for the local authority has been delivered."