Concerns are mounting for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers living in accommodation provided by the Home Office as the government ramps up its Operation Maximise exercise to “cram” more people into hotel rooms.
A Guardian investigation has identified cases including that of a transgender man who slept on a staircase because he was afraid for his safety, and a gay man who was afraid to get undressed because of the amount of homophobic abuse he received.
Operation Maximise, as it is known in the Home Office, was introduced by the immigration minister Robert Jenrick as part of a drive to contain the rising costs of housing asylum seekers, and has led to groups of people being forced to share small rooms.
At one hotel an outbreak of scabies was confirmed by public health officials after the room-sharing policy was introduced, and NGOs have identified cases where age-disputed children have been forced to share rooms with unrelated adults.
Home Office sources said the room-sharing policy complied with relevant legislation about space standards and that robust contingency plans were in place to deal with any outbreaks of infectious diseases.
The trans man said he had been brutally beaten and raped in his home country and on arrival in the UK the Home Office placed him in dormitory accommodation where he woke up to find some of the men he was sharing the space with were stripping off his clothes.
He said: “The hotel staff blocked my room card [because I refused to stay in the room, but] they said I had to share. I could not do it. I slept outside the room on the stairs and cried all night. It was the worst night of my life since I arrived in the UK.” Eventually the Home Office agreed he did not have to room share.
A lesbian woman told the Guardian she had been forced to sign a document agreeing to room share and was terrified of what might happen to her.
She said: “I will have to hide my identity in my own room. So many of us are dealing with mental health issues and trying to overcome trauma but the letter I signed said I do not have the right to object to room sharing.”
Emma Birks, of the charity Asylum Matters, said: “The government’s hotel maximisation policy is seeing traumatised people crammed together in hotel rooms and other forms of temporary accommodation. We are seeing them create conditions that cause physical and mental harm to vulnerable people who are seeking safety here in the UK. People should be accommodated in communities where they can be welcomed not warehoused in hotels.”
A new annual public health report from Hounslow council, which has one of the largest numbers of asylum seekers in hotels in the UK, has warned that the room-sharing policy “further increases mental health risks for asylum seekers” and adds that “the experience of asylum seekers in hotels has deteriorated due to the new maximisation policy”.
A Welsh government spokesperson confirmed that it opposed the asylum seeker room-sharing policy and said so far the Home Office had not implemented the policy in Wales.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “To reduce hotel use, asylum seekers will routinely share rooms with at least one person where appropriate. This minimises the impact on communities while we stand up alternative sites.”