OUR GUESTS
Sanctuary Hosting supports people who are homeless and cannot return to their home countries.
For our guests who are seeking asylum, getting Home Office accommodation can take time. Hosting can be the ideal stop-gap.
While those people granted refugee status can access services welfare benefits and local authority support, there are difficulties finding private housing because of high rents and big deposits. Hosting gives time to find work and save up, so people can find their own place.
Vulnerable migrants may have fled domestic abuse or modern slavery, and hosting can be a lifeline, the first safe home they experience in the UK, somewhere to shelter while further support is put in place.
INFORMATION FOR PEOPLE NEEDING SHELTER AND ORGANISATIONS REFERRING THEM
Sanctuary Hosting is a scheme that matches hosts (people who volunteer a spare room that they provide rent-free on a temporary basis) with guests (sanctuary seekers who are homeless, or about to be, and have come from another country).
Please note that we seek to help people with immediate needs who have no recourse to public funds and no other source of shelter for the coming weeks or months. We seek to find you a room so you can be safe and secure while you sort out what happens next.
We are not a housing service and cannot find self-contained (“own front door”) or long term accommodation for people.
Hosting placements may be anywhere within our region (Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire), and we cannot always accommodate guests’ location preferences.
Please be aware that, at the present time, we are finding it easier to find hosting placements for guests who are vaccinated against Covid 19. Potential guests may need to wait longer, if they are unvaccinated, or we may not be able to provide a hosting placement if there isn’t a host available at the time who is willing to accept an unvaccinated guest.
To be considered as a possible guest you (and any others you are applying with) need to be:
- Either homeless or about to be homeless in our region (Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire)
- From another country and with a strong reason for not wanting to go back to your country. This should not be an economic reason
- Working with a solicitor or case worker on regularising your immigration status and/or planning your move-on options. (We do not take people indefinitely)
- Willing to live in your own room in someone else’s house as a guest, and behave accordingly
- 18 or over (we don’t house children)
- Without an alcohol or drug problem and without a history of being violent
- Willing to disclose any criminal convictions
- Without a serious mental health condition (if that makes it hard for others to live with you)
- Willing to accept any hosting placement that is offered you within our region, and willing to accept Home Office accommodation, if you secure this in future
- For survivors of Domestic Abuse: willing to provide a completed safety plan, with the help of your caseworkers
- Honest about any health symptoms you, and those you have lived with, have so we can house you safely, with specific reference to COVID 19
- Willing to be honest about your Covid vaccination status
If you can answer yes to all these statements and are homeless or about to become homeless, do make contact with us so we can explore further.
