| May 2021 Newsletter from Positive Action in Housing | | | | Dear Supporter,
Ramadhan Mubarak to those who are fasting.
As we emerge out of this latest Lockdown, thank you sincerely for the support you gave us throughout this challenging period. Because of it, we were able to forge ahead with delivery of emergency support in the form of proactive advice, casework, crisis donations, digital technology, food and other emergency supplies. Having the support and love of several thousand supporters up and down the country - individuals, members and funders - is a great morale boost and source of strength. Regular donations, however modest, are a lifeline. As it's the end of the financial year we are finalising our figures on the charity's impact in 2020/21 and will release statistics in the next few weeks.
We have resumed outside surgeries for our service users as well as offering Zoom appointments, and more of our staff are working from the office to carry out emergency appointments. Staying connected as a team as well as keeping a stable office base is more important than ever. We will however continue blended working to ensure there's enough space for all of us! With your help, we will continue to fulfil our mission of helping people from BME, refugee and migrant communities rebuild their lives after a crisis.
Several few weeks ago, we were alerted to the predicament of hotel based asylum seekers in Glasgow. The wireless was cut for two weeks or so and people were desperately seeking mobile phone top ups to keep in touch with family and essential contacts like solicitors. Our Housing & Homelessness Team received an unprecedented number of requests for assistance. We organised crisis support and mobile phone top ups at one of our outside surgeries (see photo above) for around 75 asylum seekers and their dependents. In the course of this work it seems the majority have not been getting their hotel subsistence of £8 a week for several months, despite a high court ruling on this. We queried Migrant Help and pressed for our service users to receive this and the backdated payments. We then got told that the Home Office would NOT be backdating these payments until people were moved out of hotels and placed in flats. But there is currently a pause on people being moved. It is incredibly frustrating to see the small and large blocks being placed in the way of people who seek refuge in this country. They aren't here for £8 a week subsistence, people actually want to have their own agency and find work and settle. The Home Office delays mean that many asylum seekers are left waiting for months or years before their status is resolved. Finding work means they can rent privately and be released from interference in their lives by the private asylum contractors paid by the Home Office. We are now taking further measures to help people get their backdated payments.
Our refugee hosting programme Room for Refugees provides free shelter for refugees and asylum seekers in Glasgow and other towns and cities across Scotland, the U.K. (and even in the USA). In 2020-21 we arranged 43,000 nights of continuous shelter and helped asylum seekers, refugees and some vulnerable migrants to rebuild their lives. Room for Refugees is the longest running refugee hosting programme in Europe and we prioritise safety and making the process straightforward and rewarding as well as Covid secure. You can trust Room for Refugees because we have over 20 years of refugee hosting expertise and procedures in place to take you through each step.If you are interested in signing up to host a refugee family or individual just complete the registration form here . You can find out more here: www.roomforrefugees.com . Quite often, we will ask our hosts to help someone in your area with other forms of assistance too. For example, last month we were alerted to a young couple from Iran who was without food or money and our local hosts were glad to help and visited the person to provide food and a little money. Since then they have formed a small community of support around Ahmed and his wife. Things are still tough but they have friends. Ahmed and his wife have also cooked delicious food for their new friends to say thank you. To find out more about Room for Refugees, please contact our Accommodations coordinator Freya by emailing info@roomforrefugees.com.
Finally, we have three exciting new jobs on offer for the right individuals to join our team. See below for more information.
best wishes
Robina Qureshi
director
NB To support our Financial Donations Appeal, below, we need your support more than ever in this uncertain climate ahead. | | | Shop using AmazonSmile, and Amazon will have to donate to Positive Action in Housing, at no cost to you. | | Give a donation via CAF, JustGiving or PayPal Giving, or post a cheque to: Emergency Appeal, Positive Action in Housing, 98 West George St Glasgow G2 1PJ. For other ways to give, visit our donate page. | | News in Brief
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Refugee/Asylum/Migrant Rights & Equalities Training
Here's our 2021/22 timetable for live, online, open course training. We are offering all our courses online using Zoom for the foreseeable future. For in-house training please drop a line to Iain Chisholm at training@positiveactionh.org.
Call to Action
To see our latest Call To Action, go here . You will find essential resources including how to support our work, sign up or volunteer. Here also is a timeline of the deadly accommodation crisis going on in Glasgow since March 2020, at the height of the Lockdown.
Resources for Asylum Seekers and NRPF
We have put together Essential Resources for Asylum-seekers and those with No Recourse To Public Funds here
Employers: Encourage your employees to check if they need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme. Your employees risk not being able to continue living or working in the UK if they do not apply to the scheme. Apply to the EU Settlement Scheme (settled and pre-settled status)
JOBS WITH POSITIVE ACTION IN HOUSING
Positive Action in Housing is an independent, anti-racist homelessness and human rights charity (SC027577) dedicated to supporting women, children and men from refugee and migrant backgrounds to rebuild their lives. We believe in a society where everyone has the right to live safe and dignified lives, free from poverty, homelessness or inequality.
The following vacancies have become available with the Charity. For all posts, download a Job Application Form (word format) here and email your completed application to home@positiveactionh.org by the closing date specified. Successful candidates will be subject to the receipt of satisfactory references and Disclosures.
Housing and Homelessness Caseworker
28 hours per week
Office based - Glasgow
£24,410 - £27,653 pro-rata + 4% Contributory Pension
We wish to recruit a Housing & Homelessness Caseworker to join our lively, hardworking and friendly team. You will provide homelessness advice, information and representation for people from BME, refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds to reduce the risk of homelessness, eviction or destitution. Working within a small, dedicated team, you will help our service users develop and track their Personal Housing Plans in order to find safe, affordable housing. You will liaise with Registered Social Landlords to maximise housing opportunities for our clients. You will help newly settled refugees develop Personal Resettlement Plans. You will assist those with Limited Leave to Remain to avoid falling into rent arrears or losing employment related to their immigration status. You will take up housing complaints and assist asylum seekers to access essential crisis support to avoid destitution. Click here for more details about this post. Closing date: 12 Noon, Friday 21 May 2021.
Charity Bookkeeper
21 hours per week
Office based – Glasgow
£23,145 - £25,186 pro-rata + 4% Contributory Pension
We wish to recruit an experienced Bookkeeper to assist with the finances of a small but busy charity based in Glasgow's city centre. You will be responsible for undertaking accurate and timely recording of income and expenditure, bank reconciliation, purchase ledger, donor's database, payment of invoices and reclamation of Gift Aid. You will prepare and post general ledger journals and prepare reports as requested. You will have excellent written and verbal communication skills. You will have excellent numeracy skills. You will have the skills and aptitude to accurately maintain our computer-based finance records. You will pay meticulous attention to detail and have the aptitude and skills to learn on the job. You have excellent IT skills, and are familiar with spreadsheets, word processing, email and MS Office. You will be educated to degree level or equivalent. You know how to plan, manage and prioritise a varied workload under pressure. You are self-motivated and know how to work as part of a team. Click here for more details about this post. Closing date: 12 Noon, Friday 28 May 2021.
Training Coordinator
28 hours per week
Office based – Glasgow
£25,186 - £28,534 pro-rata + 4% Contributory Pension
We wish to recruit a dynamic, experienced individual who can hit the ground running and lead and deliver Positive Action in Housing's equality and diversity training programme across Scotland. The training service is highly dependent on the post holder growing existing and new business. Your central goal will be to design and deliver an exciting financially viable equalities and diversity training programme directed at housing, voluntary and statutory sector professionals and organisations. Your challenge is to make the training service financially viable with significant income generating potential for the future. You will ensure Positive Action in Housing's equalities and diversity training programme becomes a leader in its field. You will be creating an original and exciting equalities training programme in consultation with Registered Social Landlords, Voluntary organisations and local authorities. You will make learning fun as well as informative. You will work with other trainers as well as deliver training. You will be committed to finding out new learning techniques and developing accredited courses and CPD. Click here for more details about this post. Closing date: 12 Noon, Friday 4 June 2021
Submission to the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI)
We submitted evidence to the ICIBI regarding the use of hotels and barracks as contingency asylum accommodation during Covid 19. We also reported several cases where duty of care and assessment of risk and vulnerability was simply non existent. The report recommends that asylum seekers should be allowed to work and hold savings accounts and lead independent lives whatever the outcome of their asylum claim.
Despite lockdown, we are pressing ahead with the enabling EU Nationals to access the EU settlement scheme and universal credit. Our New Migrants Action Team, led by Iain, and supported by colleagues Lia, Ioana, Iulia and Andreea, is working hard on two vital pieces of work. Firstly, promoting access to the EU Settlement Scheme to vulnerable EU nationals living in Glasgow, to ensure people apply before it closes at the end of June 2021. If people don't make an application in time, they risk losing their right to live in the UK and access to public funds and services. In lockdown, this is especially difficult as people struggle to find work and survive on very limited incomes. Our other priority is helping EU nationals make Universal Credit applications, at a time when much of the work our service users depend on has dried up in lockdown. With DWP affected by lockdown too, online applications by our excluded and vulnerable service users are sometimes taking months to resolve, as they struggle with confirming their identity and circumstances. Making this worse for many people who came to live in the UK since the first lockdown is the DWP's failure to give new NI numbers to EU nationals, as many employers will not offer work to people without one. Remember, if you or someone you know needs help, you can contact us by phone on 01413532220, email newmigrants@positiveactionh.org or private message us on Facebook and we'll arrange a video or phone appointment. | | | Give a donation via CAF, JustGiving or PayPal Giving, or post a cheque to: Emergency Appeal, Positive Action in Housing, 98 West George St Glasgow G2 1PJ. For other ways to give, visit our donate page. | | | Donate your birthday via Facebook and encourage family or friends to fundraise. Go to the home page of your Facebook account (on mobile app or desktop). On the left hand side column, you should see the 'fundraiser' option under "Create" at the bottom. Click on "fundraiser" and Facebook will walk you through. For more info, visit here. | | | Click here to send an e-card for any occasion - save paper and help a worthy cause. | | Companies can request an invoice for tax/auditing purposes, email accounts@positiveactionh.org. (To add 25% gift aid
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Account: 00447398 | | | The LifeLine Service provides a breathing space so that people can decide their options and create a forward plan with their lawyer and caseworker. This approach has produced life transforming outcomes, putting autonomy back into peoples' lives.
In 2019/20, Positive Action in Housing assisted 1,440 refugees & asylum seekers from Syria, Eritrea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine and Yemen with advice, legal representation, shelter, and crisis funds at crucial stages in their settlement. We provided 43K nights of shelter (www.roomforrefugees.com) and distributed almost £60K from our Emergency Relief Fund – providing a genuine lifeline.
We work to resolve a crisis and rebuild lives. See our latest impact report | | | Throughout Winter, Positive Action in Housing provides essential crisis support to homeless or destitute refugee and asylum seeking families and unaccompanied child refugees who have fled war and persecution, leaving behind loved ones and everything they know. The charity supports people from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and many other refugee-producing countries. You can read stories about some of the people we have helped in our annual impact report here. We focus resources on those at risk of exploitation: unaccompanied children, families, pregnant woman, the elderly and sick, and lone individuals living in poverty and people with health problems/disabilities. As well as arranging shelter, the Charity helps vulnerable refugees with travel to medical and legal appointments, food vouchers and hygiene packs. We also provide crisis grants to ensure people do not go hungry, cold, or destitute. | | | | Positive Action in Housing
Working together to rebuild lives
Scottish Registered Charity SC027577
www.positiveactionh.org
www.roomforrefugees.com | | | | |
