Home Office ordered to pay for hotel for family in unsafe accommodation (The Guardian) (12 June 2020)

A high-court judge has ordered the Home Office to pay for a hotel for a vulnerable asylum seeker and her two young children, after twice placing them in unsafe accommodation over the past 10 months. The woman and her children were placed in Home Office accommodation in August 2019, but made numerous complains about the conditions. Concerns were also raised by the children’s school, social services, lawyers, and charities. After nearly 10 months, they were moved to a hotel in east London which was dirty, infested with insects, and was impossible to carry out physical distancing. Public law solicitor Maria Thomas comments; “Our client was subjected to harassment, racist abuse and overcrowding. Despite her pleas for help the home secretary did nothing to resolve this and placed her and her children in a hotel which was unhygienic, unsafe and failed to comply with the government’s guidelines for social distancing.”