January 2019 – Refugees and Housing Rights

03/01/2019

A Turkish Kurd claimed asylum and was placed in the London Borough of Hillingdon. In 2013 he was awarded refugee status and applied for housing support from Hillingdon when his accommodation was withdrawn by the Home Office.

He was given temporary accommodation under Part VII of Housing Act 1996. He challenged this decision on the grounds that the refusal to register him on the allocation scheme was unlawful and the 10 year residence criterion unlawfully discriminated against him as a refugee and a foreign national.

He claimed that refugees were inherently less likely to meet the 10 year residence requirement and that homeless refugees could not choose where they lived in the UK prior to their homelessness. The court rejected this on the grounds that the allocation scheme did not discriminate against him because he was a refugee but because he was a short term resident in the area. The 10 year provision operated I the same way to all short term residents and their similar treatment was justified.

The court also rejected that Hillingdon had breached its public sector equality duty. Finally he sought to argue that the 10 year rule was irrational in terms of its length as it was at least twice as long as the condition used by any other authority. The court dismissed this as well, stating that the guidance issued to authorities by government set a minimum period of 2 years but no maximum period and so it could not be said that adopting a 10 year requirement was outside the power granted by parliament or at variance with the guidance issued.

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