Boaz

It isn't all about food. I do other things. Today I was sitting at my kitchen table, minding my own business. I was eating bran flakes (improved with flaked almonds and linseeds) and drinking a cup of herbal tea. I was perusing jobs in Scotland that I might like to apply for someday.

The phone rang. It was the hosting coordinator for a local organisation called The Boaz Trust. They try to find hosts for destitute asylum seekers; to keep them off the streets and offer the care and attention that our ruthless government can't seem to afford them.

Nick and I have been talking about using our newly acquired spare room to host someone who needs a roof over their head for some time. We met with the hosting coordinator from Boaz, who explained what was involved - as much or as little as we liked really. You can offer to host someone for months at a time, weeks at a time or on an emergency short-term basis until some more permanent accomodation can be provided for them. Who are these people and why do they need hosted? The answer to this question is best explained by Boaz themselves:

Two out of every three asylum seekers, who flee persecution in their home countries due to civil war or for political or ethnic reasons, are refused sanctuary in the UK by the Home Office. Unable to prove their stories, they are forced onto the streets with no means of support and no right to work.

They are told to go back to their home countries, yet some cannot get the necessary travel documents, or there is simply no safe route back to their country due to conflicts or political turmoil. Many more fear persecution, torture, or even death if they return to the countries they fled from, preferring to live a life of destitution in the UK.

Furthermore, cuts in legal aid have led to many solicitors giving up immigration work meaning that some asylum seekers are unrepresented at their hearings and many struggle to make appeals and fresh claims with no support.

The Independent Asylum Commission estimates that there are 284,500 refused asylum seekers nationwide. Manchester was one of the top three dispersal towns for asylum seekers entering the country in 2007, and many remain once their asylum claims are turned down. Indeed, several thousand refused asylum seekers are known to live in the city.

Many have nowhere to go and have no choice but to sleep rough on the streets. With no national insurance number they cannot even access government funded homeless hostels. These people become like “living ghosts”, hidden from society with no means of survival. Physical and mental illness are common, particularly for those with a history of torture and abuse.

This sounded like a problem we wanted to help solve. Our spare room is a real blessing to us, allowing us to have guests to stay more comfortably than in our old flat (one bedroom and a kitchen/lounge!), but we don't have guests every weekend and it's empty pretty much every weekday. We wanted to give ourselves the summer to settle into our new house, but told Boaz we'd be available to host on an emergency basis from the end of August.

So later today we are receiving our first guest - a lady from the Congo. I'm not sure how things will work out - will we eat together? Will she speak any English? Will she understand my French? Will she be comfortable in our home? Will it be weird having a random stranger living with us? I'm excited about finding out the answers to these questions. A lot of people have told me they couldn't cope with hosting asylum seekers like this. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm naive, but I just believe that if I have the means to help someone out, I have a moral duty to do so. I'll let you know how it goes.