In June 2025 Haringey Welcome learned that Clearsprings Ready Homes had announced the closure of the last remaining asylum hotel in Haringey to commence on Monday 9 June.
Whilst we are not in favour of the use of hotels as long-term accommodation for asylum seekers, nor of the contracted out for-profit model used for asylum accommodation by the Home Office in recent years, which has seen companies like Clearsprings profit by tens of millions, our immediate concern was for the impact this closure will have on the 25 families living at the site in Tottenham, and in particular for the stress and disruption that would be caused to the many schoolchildren threatened with removal from their schools before the end of term.
On 4 June we sent a letter from twenty Haringey-based schools, faith groups, and community organisations, to the local MP David Lammy and the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, expressing our deep concern for the families and calling for a change of course to allow them to remain in Haringey and within their established community networks.
We know from previous experience at the National Hotel that Clearsprings has little regard for the wellbeing of residents in their care, moving people around on a ‘no choice’ basis between often squalid and dangerous sites like pawns on a board. So-called ‘welfare clinics’ prior to such moves are an entirely inadequate tick-box exercise, whilst residents are only notified at the last minute where in the country they are to be moved to. We believe the whole system for housing asylum seekers needs fundamental change and to be brought back into public control.
Our letter states: ‘we support the asylum housing policy proposal outlined by Asylum Matters, NACCOM, and Refugee Action based on IPPR’s Transforming Asylum Accommodation report’. In particular, as these documents propose, a humane solution for asylum accommodation is urgently needed and this must be addressed within the wider context of the housing crisis affecting all people in the UK.
We are proud of our responsive and welcoming community colleagues, and that we live in the UK’s first Welcome Borough. We are also very grateful to Haringey Council for its humane approach to supporting and advocating for these 25 families.
You can read the full letter here:
