Comments on: The debate: ‘NO to G4S NO to SERCO’ ; Target Housing & G4S partnership. Your views are most welcomed!

By: Taking over the asylum: the G4S’s standard of service… and, Security giant G4S rejects ‘World’s Worst Company’ nomination | Chile SCDA

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:13:48 +0000

[...] Link to a related story HERE [...]

By: Stuart Crosthwaite

Stuart Crosthwaite — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:56:53 +0000

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.

By: Stuart Crosthwaite

Stuart Crosthwaite — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:22:33 +0000

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)

By: John Grayson

John Grayson — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:16:49 +0000

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!!

By: Anne Greenwood

Anne Greenwood — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:33:48 +0000

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

By: Stuart Crosthwaite

Stuart Crosthwaite — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:37:59 +0000

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?

By: Colin Dyer

Colin Dyer — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:35:40 +0000

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

By: John Grayson

John Grayson — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:13:20 +0000

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.