CHARITY BEGINS
AT HOME
Rebecca Louis, partner in our Storrington office, talks about
her experience of hosting through Refugees at Home
As I write this in June it is international
refugee day and the UN have
announced that at the last count there
were 65.5 million displaced people
in the world. This includes refugees
and persons who are displaced within
their own country. That’s more than
one displaced person for every single
man, woman and child in the United
Kingdom.
Even the most hard-hearted would fail
to have been affected by the images of
Alan Kurdi’s body lying washed up on a
beach in 2015. As a mother of two small
children this was the tipping point for
me on top of all the other atrocities we
had seen and read about in the news.
But what could we do? Money was
donated, clothes and food were packed
up and shipped off, petitions were
signed but the problem is still there and
people with more skills, more insight
and a lot more power cannot seem to
solve “the” problem.
One day I was walking home from
playgroup with my then 2 year old. It
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was raining hard, he was crying and
he wanted to be carried. He’s not light
and I was juggling the pushchair, my
daughter’s scooter and two bags of
shopping. It was a ten minute walk.
But as I was whispering to soothe him
I wondered how many mothers are
there right now on longer journeys, who
don’t know if “everything will be ok
my darling,” who don’t know how long
the journey is or who or what will greet
them when they get there. Who have
already lost so much - friends, family,
possessions? How do they soothe their
child, how do they find the strength?
This all sounds quite melodramatic but
the drama is real for so many. I started
looking into other ways to help. It wasn’t
possible for me to appl y to foster Syrian
orphans as you have to not have a job.
I couldn’t pack up and leave for Calais
as I have my own family (and that job!).
I stumbled upon an article for homing
refugees. I applied but the charity was
based in Scotland and I didn’t hear
anything from them apart from their
newsletter emails.
Time passed and then, through
Facebook, I read about Refugees
at Home which was started by a
married couple who started with
hosting someone and then built the
infrastructure to match other people
with refugees.
And why do refugees, who have been
given permission to stay, need rooms?
Well because once they get leave to
remain they have only 28 days to leave
home office accommodation. In that
time they have to apply for a national
insurance number, their benefits, open
a bank account and find somewhere
to live. No easy feat. New legislation
on private landlords introduced in May
2016 makes it very difficult for refugees
to find accommodation as Landlords
are wary of being heavily fined. They
wouldn’t be if the tenant has leave to
remain but it means the refugee may
have a higher burden of proof to pass
before they’ll be accepted. Even without
all these obstacles I think we would all