Afghan families warned they could be evicted from Yorkshire seaside hotel

A North Yorkshire Council meeting was told officers were planning “for the worst case scenario” where up to 90 people still living at the bridging hotel in Scarborough would become homeless on August 16.

Councillors said they were worried a load of the refugees would “present as homeless” in the coming months after hearing the Home Office was determined to close all its controversial refugee bridging hotels before the end of October.

The meeting was told North Yorkshire was taking part in several different schemes to offer homes for refugees, including one in which well over a thousand Ukrainians had arrived in the county.

Although North Yorkshire’s councils had agreed to find homes for 200 people by 2024, the Home Office had put a hold on new cases coming through due to difficulties finding suitable accommodation.

North Yorkshire Council was awaiting awaiting ministerial sign off on taking more refugees, councillors were told, but market towns such as Malton and Richmond were not suitable for the refugees as some had significant medical needs and would be too remote from hospitals.

An officer added: “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.

“The Home Office really have not geared up. They’ve not resourced up and of course there’s the other crises, the Afghan crisis, the Ukrainian crisis as well which they are now dealing with.”

With the scheme to resettle Afghans facing persecution from the Taliban, the use of hotels had been “far from ideal”, the meeting was told.

The meeting heard there was Home Office funding to help new families out, but there was not enough affordable and suitable private rented accommodation.

In addition, officers said there was an “unwillingless” among some families to live in North Yorkshire, as there were established Afghan communities in cities like Leeds and Manchester.

An officer said many of the families had been under the impression they would have lots of choices about where they were going to live, but in reality they were offered two properties, and told if they did not accept one they would face eviction from the hotel within 56 days. However, no evictions has taken place.

A Home office spokesman 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.”