Chag Pesach Sameach (slightly early), Eid Mubarak (slightly late) and happy Easter (when it comes). It is not just been a busy month for religious folk (and loudmouth politicians who seem to have a problem with some, but not all, public displays of belief). It has also been a busy month at Thousand 4 1000.
Successive Success
We helped out our friends at the Hummingbird by accommodating two young people whilst Hummingbird got busy challenging the Home Office and the council over their refusal to provide the statutory minimum accommodation. The challenge to the council has been successful, but you’re still housing one of these two lovely young people. In fact, we then used the placement for a third Hummingbird person.
You have also been able to find a place to stay for a not young, not yet middle-aged man. He has been caught up in an absolute bureaucratic horror show. The Home Office would appear to have granted him indefinite leave to remain as a refugee, but they are now saying that they did that by mistake and that actually he doesn’t have any leave at all. It is the sort of abusive incompetence that keeps people miserable and keeps lawyers busy. Fortunately you exist and he is not on the street. We will help him sort this one out.
We were approached at the end of last week by a similarly aged woman. She is an asylum seeker who had the right to work, but that has now been removed. It of course means that she is likely to lose her housing. You are probably going to be able to cover her rent for long enough to sort out the right to work issue or at least transfer safely into asylum accommodation.
The other fantastic news is that one of our longer term residents, an older gentleman who had been stuck in the asylum system for well over a decade is about to move into long-term, secure, adapted accommodation. He has been in and out of street homelessness ever since ever since the Home Office and the Immigration Tribunal decided that his asylum claim was not credible. He was shuttled all over the country as he made repeated attempts to resolve the situation. He was housed during the pandemic as part of ‘everybody in’. When that came to an end, your support meant that he had a long term home. Supported by Voices in Exile and Citizens Advice, he was finally able to persuade a judge that he was in need of humanitarian protection. Rather than going into unsuitable, emergency accommodation, we were able to keep him on as our tenant. With a lot of support and love from one of our volunteers, Kate, and his housemate, the council have come through with a lovely little ground floor flat. We are helping him buy some furniture and other essentials. It’s a wonderful moment. After 15 or so years of serious precarity, for him to be able to say, ‘this is my stuff, this is my home, this is where I belong’ is overwhelming. You have made this possible and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Encore Ici
One of our volunteers and trustees, Annie, pointed out at our last meeting that come July it will be 10 years since we secured our first house. I am afraid you are going to end up with an awful lot of reflections from me in these newsletters over the difference that a decade has made. The first and perhaps most obvious thing to say is that being able to keep people off the streets without too much hassle is a remarkable victory. Although what we want to do is build homes for people, it has always been important to keep people safe. We set up because there was no housing support for forced migrants in Brighton. Now there is. That the Hummingbird or Refugee Radio or Voices in Exile or Care for Calais or whoever can write an email and more often than not we can find a temporary solution feels magical. It isn’t. It is the result of hard work and your support. It is so basic but at the same time so vital. There is just no way that you can sort out your crisis if you have nowhere to stay. You make that possible and you should be proud of yourselves.
I think that the other thing that has changed is the political environment. Yes, we were responding to the creation of the ‘hostile environment’. It was certainly not a golden age for migrant rights. It was also the case that the official rhetoric was about bringing people in who deserved to be and in keeping people out who deserved to be out. The view from the top now is that nobody should be bought it. Whatever Mahmood might think, once you say that settlement and citizenship is something that an outsider has to earn, the outsider will always remain outside. The insider does not have to prove their worth. They belong as of right. The outsider’s belonging is conditional on the insider’s approbation. You are a second-class citizen even once you have earned belonging.
At the heart of the sea change is a rejection of the idea that you have to share a world with others. That principle was more honoured in the breach than in the observance, but it was at least an operative principle. Both internationally and domestically, supremacism is back in fashion. It is a politics that says power does not need to take powerlessness into account. If you are useful to me or I choose to tolerate you, then perhaps I will find space for you. If you cease to be of benefit, I will destroy you. It is terrifying.
Sharing is messy. It involves compromise which means nobody getting what they want. It’s worse than that. Being right is less important than being with others. This is for the simple reason that you can be right without being able to convince others that you are right. Even when you can convince others that your position is just, you might not be able to persuade them that they should care about justice. You have to find a way of being that everybody can live with. That is also freedom. Freedom is not getting what you want. It is not even getting what you need. It is being able to do something. You can only do something along with others. You have to work with them to make anything happen. The supremacist says, I can do that by force. The democrat says you can only do that through agreement.
I would like to have an argument to show that the democrat is right, but I don’t. Works created under duress will not endure, because oppression will not endure. I doubt things that are created freely will endure either. People change, opinions change, needs change. We make and remake our world. I do know that it is better and more joyous to be with others than to oppress them. I know that because we have been doing this thing together for 10 years. It brings me joy every day. It is proof that with a little bit of imagination, there is space for all. It must be better to share than to oppress.
