Asylum Seekers do not want brutal Prison Guards as their Landlords
£230 million pounds of taxpayers money have gone to G4S and SERCO and Reliance, another security company in new UKBA COMPASS contracts to take over asylum housing.
In Yorkshire around 900 people and families will be evicted by G4S and dispersed from council properties and their existing homes to the private rented sector over the next few months
Yorkshire campaigners have already forced G4S to dump slum landlord UPM from the contract.The UKBA should now dump G4S and return the contract to councils who believe in humanitarian housing for asylum seekers
In Glasgow the SERCO takeover of asylum housing has meant 156 asylum seekers turned on to the streets and destitute – an action condemned by the Scottish government
G4S and SERCO have a record of brutal mismangement of detention centres and escort services in the UK and Australia.In 2010 there were over 700 complaints against G4S UK detention centre staff.In the first quarter of this year 21 detainees attempted suicide in G4S run Brook House and Tinsley centres.G4S escort staff are still facing trial for the death of Jimmy Mubenga at Heathrow in 2010.
SERCO runs the notorious Yarl’s Wood detention centre and has ruthlessly dealt with protests, and hunger strikes.Until 2010 it was the main centre for detaining women and children against international conventions. After detaining children it is now a preferred bidder for Childrens’ Services in Devon.
STOP THE PRIVATE SECURITY STATE
A DEMOCRACY SHOULD NOT OUTSOURCE VIOLENCE TO UNACCOUNTABLE CORPORATIONS
Join the campaign against G4S and SERCO contact SYMAAG (South Yorkshire Asylum Action Group) dignitynotdetention@yahoo.co.uk
Read about the campaigns www.symaag.org.uk
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Your views are most welcomed!
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TARGET Housing views
Dear Chile SCDA,
Re: Asylum Seekers Contract
I am writing to you following the publication of the assignment of contracts by UK Boarders Agency for the provision of services to asylum seekers under the name of COMPASS.
Target Housing Ltd formed part of the partnership led by G4S which successfully won the contract in two regions, including Yorkshire & Humberside and East Midlands.
Target Housing has a long tradition of providing housing related support services to vulnerable and marginalised individuals and families. In 2004 and 2005 Target Housing successfully working in partnership with Safe Haven Yorkshire to provide support services to asylum seekers dispersed by the Home Office to Sheffield.
As CEO I am immensely proud of the work Target Housing does on a daily basis but can also relate personal experience because I was a refugee myself. I was a political prisoner under the Pinochet Regime in Chile, spending 3 years in prison there. I have significant experience in delivering services to asylum seekers and refugees, which includes the setting-up and management of the asylum seekers contract in the East Midlands. I developed services for refugees throughout South Yorkshire including floating support services in Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster and the Station Foyer in Sheffield.
All this brought Target Housing to join the G4S partnership to deliver asylum seekers services. Although the funding for the service is considerably lower than previous contract prices Target Housing is committed to making a positive contribution to this client group and the local communities.
We have recruited experienced staff and volunteers with a vast experience in delivering services to asylum seekers. As registered RSL and Charity Target is committed to providing the best service possible to those under our responsibility.
We would like to have the opportunity to meet you to discuss how best to coordinate services for asylum seekers.
Should you require further information, please do not hesitate to contact me at the address below or email me at gino.toro@targetsheffield.org.uk .
Yours Sincerely
Gino Toro
CEO
10th February 2012
#1 by John Grayson on July 3rd, 2012
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Target should withdraw from the G4s contract – they will destroy their credibilty as a charitable housing association – and give credibility to G4S.Please read
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/john-grayson/outsourcing-charity-%E2%80%93-g4s-way>
Asylum seeker tenants have been brutalised and intimidated by G4S in detention centres and as escorts.
#2 by Colin Dyer on July 4th, 2012
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Do not touch G4S The whole ethos of G4S is to make profit pure and simple and the way can do that is by forcing asylum seekers into the cheapest and poorest properties they can. When something goes wrong it will be the subcontractor that will be the ones responsible, see what happened with UPM and the dumping of a mother and twelve week baby into one room in Doncaster moving her from Bradford. G4S will the senior partner and tie Target into their way of working. I think G4S is trying to use the charity ethos of Target to make profit and emotionaly blackmailing a charity in to helping them make profit
#3 by Stuart Crosthwaite on July 10th, 2012
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Gino, I don’t doubt your good intentions. But, as you know, Target do not have enough staff and resources to possibly do anything other than occasionally visit asylum seeking tenants.
How can you provide all the support that vulnerable people need without burning yourself and your staff out?
How will you operate the UKBA COMPASS Schedule 2 Statement of Accommodation Requirements which say that you must report: “Any reasonable suspicions that a Service User may be engaged in criminal activity, violent extremism or radicalisation. Any reasonable suspicions that a Service User may be living beyond the means of their support. Any reasonable suspicions that the Service User is working for payment”?
As a refugee from Pinochet’s terror I imagine that you were once labelled an “extremist” or a “radical”.
Is it right to operate a spying operation on people who – like you – are often here because they fought against dictatorship and injustice?
I came to Sheffield just after 100′s of Chilean refugees came here to escape the Pinochet regime. I remember that you all taught us a lot about trade union organising and international solidarity with your experience, enthusiasm and quiet determination. Maybe you remember the support you got from Sheffield Trades Council and unions then? Now the Trades Council and many unions support the campaign against G4S privatising asylum housing.
30 years on and you are working hand-in-hand with a global security company accused of manslaughter, racism and abuse.
G4S need you. Without Target, the remaining “housing providers” in Yorkshire are either incompetent cowboys (Cascade were sacked by UPM for bad performance! imagine that!?) or just profit-driven property developers – Mantel and Live Management.
G4S are desperate to clean up their brutal image. Gino, are you going to help them do that at your own expense?
#4 by Anne Greenwood on July 11th, 2012
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I can only reiterate the above comments. G4S are in this purely to make a profit and have no experience of housing provision. Their only asylum related experience is in detention and deportation and they have an appalling reputation even in this. Working with them can only damage your reputation too.
Only this evening they are in the news yet again for all the wrong reasons – this time for their abject failure to live up to their promises with respect to the security of the Olympic Games, to the extent that the army is to be called on to help them out!
Please pull out of this contract and save your reputation
#5 by John Grayson on July 12th, 2012
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The comments below are from Max Senior in Barnsley who has found access to the site difficult
I agree with all of the above comments. it seems to me and a lot of concerned people in Barnsley, that humanitarianism has been forgotten, and in its place is a company ( G4S) whose sole aim is to make money! i fear that someone will have blood on their hands in the near future, using asylum seekers and their families as commodities and not as human beings, THEY HAVE SUFFERRED ENOUGH FOR GODS SAKE!!
#6 by Stuart Crosthwaite on August 9th, 2012
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New article from SYMAAG’s John Grayson at Open Democracy website “Another Shambles as G4S is Entrusted With Running Asylum Seeker Housing”. John looks at the role of Target Housing in appearing to give credibility to G4S’ brutal and privatising role. See http://bit.ly/MCl0JQ
Also see 24 Dash, social housing website, for a critical piece on Target’s role (at http://bit.ly/NgbwC8) and an attempted justification from Target (at http://bit.ly/NaDAZF)
#7 by Stuart Crosthwaite on December 19th, 2012
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This article from the Independent (below) explains how Target Housing evicted a pregnant woman on the day she was due to give birth. Gino Toro was the CEO of Target Housing at the time of the eviction. He now works directly for G4S as their “Social Cohesion Manager” in the Midlands region.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/g4s-contractor-evicted-heavily-pregnant-asylum-seeker-even-though-they-knew-she-was-being-induced-the-same-day-8399581.html?origin=internalSearch
If Target Housing had any credibility as a socially-concerned organisation, now it’s gone.
Meanwhile the campaign against G4S housing asylum seekers goes from strength to strength. See http://www.symaag.org.uk for the latest news.
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