It’s everyone’s right to live in decent, suitable housing, regardless of their immigration status or where they were born.

Many people seeking asylum in South Yorkshire will be asked to move house, sometimes to a different area, this year. This is largely a result of G4S and their sub-contractors taking over the UK Border Agency ‘COMPASS’ contract to house asylum seekers in our region.

 This briefing is produced by SYMAAG to help you support people who have been asked to move and want to challenge this, for a variety of reasons.

Our experience is that assertive and well-informed advocacy can bring results.

Note: UKBA statement on transport of people’s belongings issued 1st August 2012. We have been finding cases where people have been told they cannot transport more than 2 bags of their belongings when being moved. In one case this led to vital equipment for a baby being left behind. G4S, Live Management, Cascade etc take note!

The UPDATED SYMAAG housing campaign guide is available to download here

We hope this guide will prove useful. We welcome your views and experience in using it so that we can fine tune the details. Though this guide contains contact information specific to South Yorkshire we hope that it can be adapted for use around Yorkshire, Humberside and the Midlands region (where G4S have the COMPASS contract) and around the UK (where Serco and Reliance Security are paid public money to house asylum seekers).

You might also find it useful to look at Monitoring G4S and the new asylum housing landlords which you can download here.