Deserving, Desirable and Undesirable Migrants: How Routes of Entry Affect Access to Housing Support and Impact Wellbeing

Abstract

This paper discusses emerging findings from a large-scale, ongoing UKRI-funded study (2024–2027) undertaken in twelve diverse areas of England. While the main project focuses on reducing health inequalities for refugees, asylum seekers and migrant populations, this interim paper focuses on emerging evidence related to the question of how perceptions of deservingness and route of entry link to access to housing and support services available to the four main refugee, asylum seeking and migrant groups who are the predominant focus within the wider research study. We argue that the level and type of support received and access to housing have a direct impact on the wellbeing of the populations. Housing is one of the key social determinants of health, with impacts on both mental health and broader wellbeing. Our findings show that nationality, together with route of entry, legal status and eligibility for statutory support (or lack thereof), clearly affects housing pathways. This, in turn, impacts on the likelihood of being housed in temporary/dispersal accommodation, as well as experiencing homelessness and longer-term housing precarity. These are factors which are widely recognised as affecting mental health and wellbeing, as well as the ability to receive uninterrupted health care for other conditions. This study explores how vulnerability, desirability, and deservingness shape different trajectories of refugee housing and resettlement and the resultant impacts on different migrant populations.

1. Introduction

Access to accommodation is one of the key social determinants of health (Marmot et al. 2024; Marmot 2025; Shelter 2021), with fundamental impacts on multiple and broad domains of wellbeing. Issues of accessibility (and affordability) for individuals and categories of persons, the quality of accommodation available to individuals, and levels of security pertaining to place of residence are all crucial to health and wellbeing (World Health Organization 2018; Rolfe et al. 2020). The right to “adequate” accommodation has been, perhaps aspirationally, identified by the United Nations as a human right (Article 25 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 11.1 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs places the necessity for ‘shelter’ as a crucial physiological component on which all other components of life stand. Ziersch et al. (2024) in their study of post-migration experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia highlighted how building a sense of home and the ontological security associated with this process is a key resettlement priority and crucial for the wellbeing of those who have experienced trauma and forced displacement.

This paper discusses emergent findings from a large-scale, ongoing UKRI-funded study (2024–2027) being undertaken in twelve diverse areas of England (metropolitan, urban, rural and coastal localities) with refugees, migrants and asylum seekers. For the purposes of our research and this paper we are using the rubric “refugees and asylum seekers” to refer to individuals who have sought humanitarian protection under a dedicated “scheme” or legally recognised right to reside in the UK, as a result of fleeing violent conflict or political or regime change impacting their rights and wellbeing in their countries of origin. In our programme of research (entitled Co-creating asset and place-based approaches to tackling refugee and migrant health exclusion: MigRefHealth in short form), we have sought to include four key refugee and asylum seeker groups across our field sites: Syrians, Afghans, Ukrainians and Hong Kongers.

The overarching aim of the study is to identify and evaluate how social determinants of health impact health outcomes for diverse refugee, asylum-seeking and migrant communities. Ultimately, the key objective is to improve health equality for the above groups through leveraging a co-produced understanding of the different challenges and opportunities to enhance the health outcomes that exist in selected urban, rural and coastal areas. Our approach consists of collaboratively identifying excellent practice within field sites and developing transferable models to support Integrated Care Systems and civil society agencies to collaborate on designing and delivering initiatives to support the health and wellbeing of the above populations.

Within the research, we focus on three main categories of ‘community assets’ which support and impact the health, wellbeing and social integration of refugees and asylum seekers. One of these categories is access to appropriate accommodation, given the centrality of housing to human wellbeing, stability and access to other services.

Van Oorschot’s (2000) seminal theoretical modelling of ‘welfare deservingness’ proposed that public solidarity and approval of provision of support are conditional, rather than universal. He identified a set of ‘moral logics’ (rather than arbitrary prejudice) which he argued operate when forming opinions of who is ‘worthy’ of publicly funded support. He formulated a set of criteria, Control, Attitude, Reciprocity, Identity and Need, to create the “CARIN framework,” which he argues is applied to categories of individuals when assessing their worthiness to receive assistance. In essence, operationalising such categories acts as a moral assessment grid, with the five key criteria acting as the essential prisms through which the “public” and “policy makers” judge whether a person or group of people deserves government assistance (Sosa Popovic and Welfens 2025; Vrânceanu and Petrova 2025). As we discuss subsequently, the CARIN framework has been recognised as a critical tool in migration studies, offering a means to analyse how the “deservingness” of a specific group of refugees or asylum seekers is socially and institutionally constructed (Van Oorschot et al. 2017). We use this concept to ground our belief that the perception of individual or categorical vulnerability, coupled with the likelihood of being seen as an ‘asset’ to the nation-state and duties “owed” to people (because of prior connections to the UK), is the lens through which particular humanitarian schemes providing safe routes of entry are framed (Benson et al. 2024; Tryl and Surmon 2022). This enables some of our participants to access services, while others are excluded or marginalised from support eligibility.

The concept of ‘everyday bordering’ (Yuval-Davis et al. 2018) has also been helpful as we review the evidence we are collecting. Our data illuminates how the borders of a nation-state have shifted from impacting migrants at territorial margins (ports of entry) and lie at the heart of their daily life. In this research we have found that it is typically local authorities who act as primary gatekeepers to services, because they are tasked with discerning vulnerability within a system that is viewed as susceptible to manipulation or bias. In the absence of adequate resources and an evidence base, such bodies typically use legal status and route of entry as bordering tools, prioritising particular groups of ‘desirable’ refugees and asylum seekers over those who score lower within the CARIN framework.

While the MigRefHealth project is focused on the overall health and wellbeing of the populations we are researching, and explores how they access and utilise a range of available locally provided services, this paper concentrates purely on our emergent findings pertaining to housing and accommodation. Specifically, we discuss how the route of entry to the UK impacts the availability of tailored support services and the type of accommodation provided to the varying categories of people seeking humanitarian protection, and how these factors affect participants’ mental and physical health.

A minor sub-theme (explored subsequently in the paper) pertains to barriers to access to training and employment for these groups, with explicit reference made to the construction industry and the scope offered by this industry to engage young, single, (largely) male refugees in work, without necessarily requiring high levels of education or language skills. We posit that a chronic skills shortage in this employment field underpins delays in housing delivery, reducing opportunities to access safe, affordable housing for our participants and other wider groups. This points to a growing demand for refugees to participate in training and employment.

How Routes of Entry Impact Rights to Housing and Other Services

In contextualising the findings presented in this paper, it is useful to reflect on the types of support and accommodation pathways available to our four main categories of participants at the national level. Of the 35,700 Afghans who have been resettled in the UK under varying dedicated schemes since 2021, as of June 2025, 74% were living in social housing, 15% were in transitional accommodation, such as hotels or military bases, and only 11% had moved into privately rented housing (Cuibus et al. 2025). Most settled Afghans receive integration support, including help to find housing, work and learn English as well as financial support for their housing (Cuibus et al. 2025). Afghans resident through all forms of UK resettlement schemes have been eligible for certain statutory support provisions. This includes dedicated support workers who assist people in finding suitable accommodation, and the opportunity to access local authority supplied (sometimes with central government funding) social housing. Syrians and Ukrainians who have entered the UK on a scheme have similar provisions. However, while in theory such support is provided, the process of accessing advice is not always straightforward and varies according to location and how services are commissioned across council structures, as explored in our findings.

Of the Syrians who entered the UK between 2014 and 2020, approximately 20,300 persons were resettled from third countries (mainly Turkey and Lebanon) through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) (Kirke-Wade 2026, p. 22). Following the ending of the VPRS, the UK Resettlement Scheme, described by the Home Office as a “direct safe and legal route to the UK for refugees in need of protection,” resettled 1576 Syrian nationals between 2021 and 2024. In 2024 there was also a marked increase in the number of Syrian asylum seekers who reached the UK independently (with approximately 2900 arriving as irregular ‘small-boat’ migrants) in response to further political upheaval in their country of origin. Asylum claims by Syrians increased by 70% when compared to 2023, such that Syrian nationals equated to 7.3% of all asylum claims made up until the end of September 2024 (Walsh and Jorgensen 2025; Jones 2024). For individuals and families who entered the UK via central government resettlement schemes, a full package of support largely run by local authorities is offered, including access to pre-arranged accommodation, English language lessons, orientation and support with registration with medical services and educational facilities. While it is impossible to ascertain the percentage of resettled Syrians living in social housing (as on receipt of refugee status they are no longer ‘tracked’ by country of origin/status), the Home Affairs Committee on the management of asylum accommodation reported in 2025 that 78% of resettled Syrians live in houses, 19% in flats and 4% in houses of multiple occupancy. It is important to note that the UK government operationalised a “5-year funding/1-year intensive support” funding model. This was designed to front-load assistance to help Syrian refugees become self-sufficient as quickly as possible, while also seeking to provide long-term financial certainty for the local authorities with housing responsibility who volunteered to be part of the scheme. Participant local authorities are thus likely to be those that identified or created housing availability (either social or private rental housing) as well as typically those that have existing specialist services in their areas, e.g., schools with experience of working with refugee children, targeted health provision, etc. (Home Office 2024).

In contrast, Syrian asylum seekers who arrive irregularly on small boats (overwhelmingly male) or otherwise independently, are subject to the same assessment procedures after applying for asylum as others seeking humanitarian protection. While figures from 2025 indicate that Syrians are likely to receive a positive asylum decision in 98% of cases, they are still only able to access initial accommodation and basic provisions of medical care and a small subsistence allowance while their claim is determined (which may take months or years), at which point they have a limited period to ‘move on’ and find their own accommodation unless they are accepted as homeless by the local authority because they are assessed as vulnerable (Jorgensen 2025).

Most Ukrainians arrived via the bespoke Homes for Ukraine scheme, which was launched in early 2022. It offered visas to anyone who had been sponsored by a UK resident, with receipt of such sponsorship involving an offer of accommodation for a minimum of six months. By July 2024, about 210,000 Ukrainians arrived in the UK on this and other, smaller schemes (Cuibus et al. 2024).

Since the scheme began, 46% of those granted visas were adult women, 26% children and 6% adults aged 65 and over (both genders). Most men under the age of 60 were not allowed to leave the country by the Ukrainian government and instead faced conscription to fight against the Russian invaders. In this paper, we argue that public discourse and sympathy towards this category of asylum seeker is likely to be particularly high given perceived vulnerability (see further below for a discussion on this concept). Moreover, media and political framing of the experiences of this group of refugees (Esposito 2022; Bayoumi 2022; Mance and Splichal 2024) has often emphasised their similarity to other Western ‘majority’ populations, such as Christianity and Whiteness, as well as cultural similarities to the British, which could aid integration and reduce tensions when sharing a home with their hosts. Accordingly, this group can be seen as scoring highly in public opinion within the CARIN framework. Although public sponsorship of accommodation offered an excellent example of how a simple scheme could be used to provide humanitarian protection and ensure rapid safe routes to the UK, as we have found in our research, such schemes have not proved to be a panacea for all accommodation challenges, despite some very positive stories of deep long-term friendships resulting from hosting arrangements.

In particular, these refugees did not receive permanent housing because hosts generally only guaranteed accommodation for six months, and they experienced both limited access to social housing and problems accessing private accommodation (Whitehead et al. 2025). By March 2024, 9500 Ukrainians had applied to local authorities as homeless, most from losing the accommodation initially provided by their host, and some even before the initial six months had expired (Cuibus et al. 2024).

In contrast to the above groups, most Hong Kongers arrived via a completely different programme, the UK Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa Scheme, which opened in January 2021. Over 180,000 people had arrived on these visas as of mid 2025. People with British National (Overseas) citizenship and their adult children and families are eligible to apply for a visa to live in the UK, but must prove that they can maintain themselves and their families in the UK for at least six months. After five years, they can then apply for settled status, but during that five years, they must accommodate and support themselves with “no recourse to public funds” (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government 2025; Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities 2025). In tightly defined circumstances, they can apply for access to public funds, but will need to have exhausted their savings to do so. Local authorities can also access funding, via the Hong Kong Welcome programme, to support those at risk of destitution. Despite the presumption (largely borne out in our findings) that Hong Kongers are likely to be well educated and have resources to support themselves and their family, we found that many have faced housing problems, such as dealing with the processes of buying a home, or challenges with renting, including excessive rent increases or having to pay 6–12 months’ rent upfront.

In contrast to participant groups who entered the UK through recognised schemes, and who (other than Hong Kongers) have some form of recourse to public funds to aid their resettlement, there is a final category of asylum seekers and refugees who, in the minds of the public and many politicians, occupy a lower rung within our proposed hierarchy of deservingness. This group (which cuts across a broad range of ethnicities but which in our field sites includes Syrians, Afghans and some other ‘migrant’ populations, e.g., Iranians and Iraqis) is distinguished predominantly by consisting of single, younger males. These asylum seekers are often characterised in the media as “fighting age men” in a manner that frames them as either explicitly dangerous to the UK public or having abandoned women, children and the elderly in a self-seeking attempt to gain security (McGrath 2025). As we reflect upon further below, this category of asylum seekers typically attracts the harshest public and media opprobrium (faring poorly when measured against the CARIN framework) and experience the greatest risk of homelessness once a decision has been made regarding their asylum claim.

2. Relative Deprivation Theory (Theoretical Framing)

Theories on deservedness and perceptions of particular characteristics that are seen as more ‘deserving’ underpin the CARIN framework. These theories frame concepts of an individual or group who are regarded as ‘worthy’ of humanitarian aid, protection and access to public resources, according to public opinion. Relative Deprivation Theory (RDT) (Townsend 1979) as an approach to understanding why some categories of refugees and asylum seekers are seen in public discourse as ‘less worthy’ or undeserving of public support, can offer a compelling argument for why certain individuals in the UK are more resistant to humanitarian arguments than others (see further Esses et al. 2021; Kotzur et al. 2019; Hernes et al. 2022). RDT, while linked to deprivation and scarcity, which are more associated with individuals living in more deprived areas, or having lower levels of skills or qualifications, avoids falling into a trap of automatically presuming that pure racism or lack of education underpins public responses to some migrant groups. The theory suggests that in times of austerity, with limited public resources, there is often a perception that access to housing and other welfare operates as a zero-sum calculation and that (often high-profile) provision of accommodation and support for refugees and migrants is provided at the expense of other longer-established populations who are also in need (Perocco and Della Puppa 2023). Such public resentment typically does not arise from an absolute lack of resources, but rather from the perception of some people (for example, those experiencing socio-economic deprivation) that they are being treated unfairly compared to another group who are prioritised or in receipt of preferential treatment. Where government dispersal strategies result in placing asylum seekers in poorer neighbourhoods where housing costs are cheaper, such central policies often further deepen hostile reactions from residents existing in contexts of relative deprivation.

Access to public resources such as housing, accessible and affordable transport, social welfare, health, education, legal services, etc., as a whole, is deeply influenced by existing contexts of deprivation and geographic location. Perceptions that ‘new-comers’ may be afforded such provision shortly after arrival, regardless of their level of need, or when services are provided specifically for such populations (for example dedicated transport into towns, and health services provided on-site for asylum-seeking males dispersed into isolated former military camps) are prime examples of ‘flash-points’ where RDT explains the level of disinformation and outrage which may manifest in social media posts or protests outside accommodation provided for asylum seekers (Electronic Immigration Network 2025).

Hernes et al. (2022) posit that the “undeserving” label levelled at some migrants is a psychological defence mechanism, whereby the host population can justify their anger at a system that they feel has bypassed them and taken action without their consultation or agreement. Thus, a complex geopolitical issue is simplified and translated at the local level into a simple matter of perceived unfairness and competition (De Coninck and Matthijs 2020), as refugees are seen as symbolic recipients of state protection that is denied to other longer-standing residents.

We argue that the CARIN framework, when applied to assessing the degree of support supplied to different categories of refugees, can be seen to explicitly engage both with the often febrile debate around ‘who should get what, and why’ (Van Oorschot 2000; Van Oorschot et al. 2017) and the way in which everyday bordering (Yuval-Davis et al. 2018) is the institutionalisation of the logic of ‘deservingness’.

Thus, the mode of arrival of asylum seekers plays into and deepens the arguments around ‘deservedness,’ which are core to the RDT. Individuals and families who have been recognised internationally or through state agencies as in need of protection and who are eligible for formal schemes to enter the UK are widely regarded as having a greater moral claim on the host nation than those who seek asylum outside such schemes. Although small-boat arrivals are a relatively small percentage of asylum seekers, this group has received significant negative press attention (Neylon 2025), influencing the broader discourse, policy response and landscape of asylum applications, despite the fact that around 62% of such claimants are successful in achieving asylum (Kirke-Wade 2026, p. 38). People who have arrived on small boats (as we discuss below) can also be shown to be treated more poorly in comparison to asylum seekers using other methods of arrival, even when the strength of evidence and outcomes of applications are comparable (Bhatya and Kadam 2025).

2.1. Migration, Legal Status and Housing (Supporting Literature)

The existing literature clearly evidences the intersection between migration status, access to (often poor-quality) housing and health outcomes. Evidence has shown that migrants to the UK (and other higher-income countries) (Rana et al. 2025) generally experience worse housing conditions than those born in the UK (Fernández-Reino et al. 2024). However, this does vary between different migrant communities. At the lower end of the private-rented sector, the “migrant housing market” offers potentially unsafe conditions to people whose lack of knowledge of their rights, and possibly uncertain immigration status, make them more vulnerable (Perry 2012; Faculty of Public Health 2024; Yeoman et al. 2025).

Most new migrants to the UK are ineligible for social housing or basic homelessness assistance until they receive indefinite leave to remain (ILR), which for most is at least 5 years after arrival. However, the UK government (Home Office Policy Paper 2025) has announced that policy changes will (if enacted in 2027) potentially extend the period before most can obtain ILR by at least a further 5 years (Cuibus 2026). Asylum seekers are similarly excluded from such social housing provision and are instead provided with basic Home Office-funded accommodation until their status is determined. This will vary depending on route of entry, and personal circumstances, such as having dependent children or being disabled. Crucially, for those individuals provided with such initial accommodation (‘asylum support’), not only do they not have security of tenure, meaning that they are excluded from basic protections afforded to those renting a property, but they are also placed in ‘dispersal accommodation’ on a ’no choice’ basis. This means that they may find themselves living in houses of multiple occupancy, which are typically a considerable distance away from relatives, friends, or important provisions such as access to a mosque, halal food providers, and individuals who share a language, country or region of origin, or culture (Spira et al. 2025). All these factors inevitably impact both mental and physical wellbeing (Miller et al. 2018), but also the ability to integrate into local communities and build a new life.

Once someone receives refugee status, they are in a slightly improved housing situation as they then become eligible to access welfare benefits, including finance to assist with paying for rented accommodation, assistance in finding somewhere to live or sometimes access to social housing. Crucially, the mandated “move on” period from Home Office-resourced accommodation once refugee status is granted is limited, creating a significant risk of becoming homeless, or leading refugees to simply accept an offer of the first available accommodation, however unsuitable, as we have found when speaking to participants in our study.

Those threatened with homelessness and who are eligible (via their new immigration status) to receive help to find housing will often report that such support is very limited. A further category, those who are in “priority need” because their household includes a child, pregnant woman or vulnerable person, must also be found accommodation by the local authority, but this may simply be an offer of privately rented accommodation as a temporary or permanent home. Refugees are also eligible to be placed on the local authority housing allocation scheme to receive affordable and secure social housing, which offers a level of priority to those who were homeless or have relevant medical or social needs. However, in most places this waiting list is over-subscribed.

2.2. Vulnerability

The concept of ’vulnerability’ in housing law and policy is complex and defined differently in different contexts. In housing law, vulnerability moves a homeless applicant into “priority need” and a resultant higher placement on the housing waiting list. Case law now defines ‘vulnerability’ as the situation where a person who, if without accommodation, would suffer from harm that would not be experienced by a person without such status (Luba et al. 2025). Another definition is offered by the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS), who deal with housing complaints. They define vulnerability as “a dynamic state which arises from a combination of a resident’s personal circumstances, characteristics and their housing complaint” (Housing Ombudsman Service 2024, p. 20). In the same document, they also cite the Care Act 2014, which defines a vulnerable adult as one “who has … needs for care and support… experiencing, or is at risk of, abuse or neglect, …. unable to protect himself or herself against (it).”

These overlapping definitions make vulnerability a sometimes slippery concept, and can be difficult to prove, especially for those who may not have full medical records as a result of migration, who fear disclosing materially important circumstances, or whose vulnerability is created by intersecting conditions, including poor mental health. Accommodation allocation schemes (particularly for single people) favour those with documented serious medical problems or disabilities that can be alleviated by social housing provision, although these usually involve long waiting times. Premises offered may be unsuitable, as documented by some participants in our study who reported dangerous staircases to access housing, despite having mobility issues. Single people who are offered accommodation may find that such provision consists of a single room in a shared house or flat, living with unrelated and previously unknown people, which can potentially increase prior trauma and insecurity (Ortega-Alcázar and Wilkinson 2020; Miller et al. 2018).

Refugees in the UK seek housing within a frame of general migrant accommodation disadvantage, but face further difficulties. In a synthesis of evidence on the impact of housing on refugees, Brown et al. (2024, p. 261) found “a body of literature which indicates that refugees are often living in poor quality and insecure housing, and that there is a direct relationship with this and poor mental health, as well as restricted opportunities for building social networks.”

Phillimore et al. (2025, p. 1), exploring the provision afforded to asylum seekers and refugees, reported that “Institutional housing and associated poor living conditions were reported to contribute to deterioration in physical and mental health which collectively undermined wellbeing. Inaction around urgent and life-threatening health conditions were seen as placing individuals’ lives and long-term health at risk.” Indeed as was tragically evidenced in 2020, local authority use of accommodation which was subsequently deemed unfit for human habitation, was directly implicated in the death of a child refugee (Bancroft 2022).

Despite concerns being raised about the conditions found in asylum hotels and houses in multiple occupation, for example, lack of nutritious food (Elgueta 2025), overcrowding (Cobham 2025), higher levels of mental ill health arising from a lack of safety and autonomy, and increased social isolation (Spira et al. 2025), these types of provision may not present the greatest threat to asylum seekers’ health. In response to political and media pressure about the huge costs of asylum accommodation (totalling over £5 billion in 2023/4; Walsh and Jorgensen 2025) and anti-migrant protests in 2024 and 2025 (Stacey 2025), the government announced, in October 2025, that it intends to use more large-scale sites in addition to the three existing ex-army sites (Napier in Kent; Crowborough Training Camp in Hampshire and Wethersfield in Essex) to house single male asylum seekers (Home Office et al. 2025). This swivel to “basic” provision of accommodation instead of placing young men in hotels is a clear response to the framing in populist discourse of hotels being unjustifiably expensive and creating a luxurious ‘pull factor’ for would-be refugees (Aguilar García et al. 2026; Sangha and Dzimwasha 2025). These swiftly enacted changes in government policy1 increase the risk of such former military sites becoming significantly overcrowded, impacting the mental health and wellbeing of residents (Doctors of the World 2024; Syal 2026). Moreover, as both existing and proposed ex-military sites are physically isolated, their location reduces opportunities for everyday interactions with local communities, which can break down barriers, enhance a sense of everyday “conviviality” (Wessendorf 2014) and aid integration.

Regardless of the type of accommodation allocated to asylum seekers, there is some evidence that housing disadvantage continues even once an individual or family has received refugee status. A Home Office (2025) survey compared the housing outcomes of those who arrived via the asylum route and refugee resettlement routes such as those designed for Afghans and Syrians. The authors found that refugees who had applied for asylum on arrival in the UK (as opposed to those who had arrived via formal refugee resettlement programmes) were, regardless of household size, more likely to be living in flats or maisonettes than houses, specifically in privately rented accommodation. In contrast, those who arrived via dedicated programmes were more likely to be allocated social housing with such rented accommodation (particularly for family units), including larger premises such as houses with adequate living space to socialise and live relatively comfortably as they adjusted to life in Britain (Home Office 2025).

As we have found in our research, pathways to obtaining secure and appropriate housing are far from straightforward. While there are very clear regional differences in access to accommodation, with London and the South East experiencing the greatest shortages of social landlord provision and the highest private rental costs (Bunn and Bancroft 2025; Office for National Statistics 2026), we posit that concepts of deserving, desirable and undesirable categories of migrants are framed in discourse and operationalised to create a moral hierarchy aligned to the CARIN framework.

In particular, certain domains of the framework carry additional weight in terms of perceptions of desirability, such as the elements of ‘Control’—whether people are perceived as responsible for their situation (for example Syrians or Ukrainians fleeing war); Reciprocity—past or likely future social and economic contributions to the nation-state (for example Afghans who have worked with the military/Hong Kongers); and Identity, where ‘values’ are perceived of as aligning to the self-perception of the host nation, such as ethnicity, faith, and likelihood of entering employment (Ukrainians, Hong-Kongers). In turn, these are filtered through perceptions of vulnerability or ‘Need’ in a manner which traverses individual circumstances and encompasses entire populations. Accordingly, this enmeshing of stereotyping of migrant characteristics and experiences which support popular discourse on vulnerability and/or desirability of particular categories of asylum seekers and refugees (Mance and Splichal 2024) impacts, we argue, how policy and practice are operationalised. In turn, this framing, which at worst seeks to impact legal decision making on asylum claims (Moloney 2025) and which undoubtably influences the UK government’s development of ever harsher migration policies (Smout 2025), feeds into increasingly heated (social) media debate around migrant “queue-jumpers” (Electronic Immigration Network 2025) They may be represented as failing to demonstrate an appropriate ‘Attitude’ within the CARIN framework, for example, through possessing a sense of entitlement to support, or entering the UK via irregular means, accessing the limited supply of accommodation to the detriment of other more deserving individuals and families.

2.3. Deservingness, Desirability and Access to Accommodation

The theoretical question of how one defines and interprets “deservingness” regarding access to welfare support (classified in the broadest sense to include housing and other benefits accessible to citizens and residents of a state) has been afforded considerable renewed attention in policy literature within the 21st century (Van Oorschot 2000; Schneider and Ingram 2005; Carmel and Sojka 2020). Esping-Andersen’s (1990) definition of welfare states as liberal, social-democratic, or conservative, with each regime bringing a distinct approach to conceptions of justice and fairness regarding welfare provision, has been both refined and critiqued over several decades (Ferragina 2025; Arts and Gelissen 2010; Bertin et al. 2021). To this we add that the increasing role of non-state actors and civil society in delivering social welfare (Hemerijck 2013) and enhanced understanding of the inequalities and impacts of the post-Soviet economic system and welfare state may itself act as an impetus to migration (Kovács et al. 2017; Allen et al. 2025). The exponentially increasing pressures on welfare states in the West, particularly during and post-pandemic, coupled with an increasingly ageing population, are associated with resulting “policy drift” (Sowula et al. 2024) and widespread retrenchment (Kühner 2012; Greve 2020). The increasing adoption of neo-liberal exclusionary policies towards access to welfare provision even within traditionally “liberal” or “social-democratic” regimes and constituent groups (Magni 2020; Bendixsen and Näre 2024) aligns in recent years with a well-documented hardening of public and political attitudes towards migrants (Vrânceanu and Petrova 2025; Saenz Perez 2023), who are often seen as undeserving recipients of welfare provision, primarily designed and paid for by native-born citizens of the state (Perocco and Della Puppa 2023; Vintila and Lafleur 2020; Schmidt and Quandt 2018). Some have gone further and posit links between the exclusion of migrants and later loss of rights by citizens as being partially the result of “testing” on migrants (Guentner et al. 2016). Thus, the actual design and operationalization of welfare regimes may mitigate or increase the challenges faced by individuals in realising their rights and entitlements to support (Saar et al. 2022).

As we have outlined above, the refugee and asylum-seeking participants in our current research are entitled to varying levels of support regarding the provision of housing, or ‘support and advice’ to obtain accommodation. Despite this, and as illustrated within the findings below, where participants refer to their particular status, level of personal or family need, and access to information, it is at the intersections and nexus of everyday encounters with officials that pathways to appropriate accommodation can crystallise or fail to materialise.

The question of how and when conscious or unconscious bias comes into play in terms of allocating services, housing and support to migrants is ingrained within everyday policy interpretation at the local authority level. As analysed by Lipsky (1980) and Covello (2021), even before housing shortages and increased numbers of refugees and asylum seekers were so marked in the UK, the pressure within policy implementation allows for this kind of bias to seep into decision making, impacting individuals at multiple levels. This includes the “people-processing techniques to manipulate caseloads, such as rationing and parking on waiting lists, rule adaptation, withholding information, or creative rule interpretation for circumstances that had not been foreseen when devising the policy” (Lipsky 1980, p. 4).

The degree of access to resources a claimant has is driven by their apparent deservedness, whereby administrators become co-producers of a value system that legitimises a claim to welfare protection (Ratzmann and Sahraoui 2021). The CARIN framework involves a set of quantitative criteria, whereby the social legitimacy of access to welfare provision is evaluated and the deservedness of a claimant deduced. Qualitative aspects which are incorporated into such processes are more challenging to measure but also abound, including elements specific to migrants’ ‘deservingness’ although not foregrounded by the CARIN framework. Specifically, the idea of relationality and contingency, which is rooted in ethnographic research (Willen 2012), offers elements of ‘need’, ‘rights’, ‘deservingness’, and ‘entitlement’ when contemplating how policy makers decide who is or who is not deserving. As Willen and Cook (2016, pp. 113–14) suggest, “deservingness’ is ‘reckoned in ways that are relational, conditional, context-dependent, syncretic, affect-laden, and mutable” (Laenen et al. 2019). This approach was unpacked further by Dwyer et al. (2022) in their exploration of the ethics of welfare conditionality in the UK and increasing government use of coercive mechanisms.

Evidence of “deservedness” bias in relation to planning, location and accessibility of services (including accommodation) to support refugees, asylum seekers and migrants (as well as other vulnerable groups) is still emerging. However, while the disparate outcomes between and among migrant groups is evidence that bias exists, capturing the processes of such mechanisms of (non)implementation requires further research to discover how and where the interface between perceptions of ‘deserving’ and ‘undesirable’ populations and their treatment crystalises into policy and practice, particularly in the light of well-established legal precedents and international responsibilities towards asylum seekers and refugees (Donaldson 2025).

This paper is thus adding to the literature in capturing and evidencing the disparate outcomes between refugee groups and those subject to humanitarian protection when framed through experiences of accessing accommodation. In turn, we argue that the ways in which public perception appears to impact how policies of support are enacted by various state agencies not only have implications for the type of housing available to those refugees and asylum seekers, but also may increase pre-existing physical and mental health disparities experienced by such populations (Rana et al. 2025).

3. Materials and Methods

Our research project focuses on exploring the use of community assets (services, spaces, organisations and/or people) that support health and wellbeing for multiple groups of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the East of England, north London, and south London, although this paper focuses specifically on housing. The UKRI/AHRC programme, which funds this study, sought place-based approaches to tackle health inequalities for marginalised populations. Twelve field sites were selected to provide a range of urban, rural and coastal sites where population and locality-based factors influence three key wider social determinants of health: housing, food and nutrition, and access to services. For comparability across the sites, the project focuses on refugee and asylum-seeking Syrians, Afghans, Ukrainians and Hong Kongers who have the protection of government settlement schemes. Each site also selected one EU and one non-EU group, in collaboration with local community partners and identified by the size of such populations, triangulated against the duration of community formation, to address particular areas of need.2

The research design focused on co-created and creative methodologies to foreground the lived-experience perspective, a key requirement of the funding stream and a long-term ethos of the research team members. We trained 21 community co-researchers (from the populations of interest) in participatory research methods who, together with our community partners, recruited male and female participants over 18 years of age for the study. A total of 12 community forums are being held in each field site, which operate as the main sites of data gathering with participants. Our methodologies include focus groups and interviews, as well as creative methods such as collaborative asset mapping, walking interviews, narrative storytelling, arts practices, and photography. Interview schedules and forum topic guides focused on the use of community assets through the themes of housing, food and nutrition, and access to services. At the time of writing (mid-way through the research cycle) we had engaged with over 850 participants; held over 60 community forums across field sites and engaged with over 230 stakeholders from statutory and civil society agencies.

The multi-faceted methodologies that the project employed were designed to provide a unique range of collaborative, interactive and inclusive encounters that privileged the experiences of participants. Ethical considerations were fundamental to this, given the diversity of participants, with many living in precarious and challenging circumstances. Simplified, easy-read consent forms and information sheets were translated into participants’ languages and sufficient time for consent procedures was built into each research event due to the need to explain research concepts verbally (with interpreters as needed) where literacy was a consideration.

The project operates a robust protocol for data management with handling and protection processes including data anonymization and data for each field site being stored securely and separately, with raw data, and participant identifying reference codes only accessible to specific ‘locality-based research team’ members. Participants were allocated an indirect identifier in the form of a participant number on arrival to each session, prior to the completion of consent forms and the collection of personal data and demographic information. Data gathered on site during research sessions was subsequently pseudo-anonymised against the participant number, allowing personal data and qualitative research data to be held in separate, secure systems. The recorded and transcribed data from interviews and focus groups was collaboratively analysed through a multi-stage process using NVIVO to code before an inductive approach was utilised to derive themes. Participatory observation notes formed the basis of interpretive work on the creative data artefacts and sessions, as part of a reflexive, thematic analysis. These elements were drawn together to create overarching thematic categories for the data sets.

4. Results

The results presented in this paper focus only on emergent findings pertaining to housing experiences of the core refugee, asylum-seeking and migrant populations participating in the study and, where data exists, participants’ explicit reflections on the impact of their accommodation on their health and wellbeing. In this section we frame the housing experiences of these populations through the prism of desirability and deservingness to interrogate how route of entry and public and political perceptions impact their subsequent accommodation trajectories.

4.1. Desirable/Deserving Migrants

4.1.1. Ukrainians

The Ukrainians in our study had all arrived under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. The ease with which they found host families varied, depending on the make-up and size of their family and additional requirements, such as pets. Some participants reported challenges of living with host families, such as significant cultural misunderstandings and a mismatch of expectations. One (female) participant in the East of England stated that

“The family who actually invited us, they were not ready for this. So, they didn’t know how the programme worked, what they will do, what they need actually.”

We found that, commonly, hosts involved in the Homes for Ukraine scheme were unprepared for the realities of sharing their homes with Ukrainian families. While goodwill, and sensitivity to the situations people had fled, generally prevailed for the first few months, some hosts were reported by participants to have quickly become frustrated with sharing their space and were often unable to provide the necessary support to families who had arrived with no knowledge of the UK system and who needed help to navigate applying for the BRP (biometric residence permit, now EVisa, which is proof of immigration status), benefits and school places. As this participant from London explained,

“It was very difficult. We contacted everyone we could. Including a [local authority] council worker, and I also contacted a local charity organization. But it was very difficult, and our sponsors helped us a lot because I didn’t have a job.”

Ukrainians stressed that many hosts did help as much as they could, but faced with a complex bureaucracy and changing UK government policy, they were often ill-equipped to provide the knowledge required. Support from agencies commissioned to provide this via the government funding for local authorities receiving people on the Homes for Ukraine scheme was critical for many. One participant living in an East of England city commented

“Because, you know, when you move, you spend a lot of money. So, I’m just asking [a local agency] about support with electricity, [they can provide] around £70 or £80 … So absolutely happy with that, and very thankful to them.”

Participants resident in isolated rural areas (particularly if they had previously lived in a city) could find the transition particularly challenging to deal with, even without language barriers to overcome. Without independent transport and limited bus services in many rural locations, the sense of isolation expressed was acute, as identified by a participant from another East of England field site:

“… when you’re living in the countryside with nothing around, … it’s very difficult, especially for me, because I’m not driving, you know? So, for example, if I want to go into the town, I need to spend almost an hour and a half.”

This participant was able to secure a council house eventually in a suburb of a city where she now lives with her children and her mother, who has subsequently arrived in the UK. The shift to a location where work and activities were much more readily available had a corresponding positive effect on her mental health, enabling her to feel settled and engaged with her local community and find a renewed sense of purpose.

Once the initial six-month period ended, some participants were able to stay with their host families for longer, while others needed to move on and secure their own accommodation. Respondents reported that they were overwhelmingly reliant on hosts, friends, family and local support organisations to navigate the private rental market and were frequently only able to secure housing at all due to word of mouth and informal approaches to landlords. A Ukrainian resident in a different urban field site explained,

“My friend, to be honest, really helped us with accommodation… And a year ago, she … moved [in with her] boyfriend. And she called [me to say], ‘… I have a free accommodation. If you want, I just can discuss with my landlord about that opportunity, that you can move’. And I said, ‘Great, I would be happy’. … This lady who is the landlord, she had a positive experience with Ukrainian people. So, she was absolutely open. She agreed that we [could] move to this accommodation.”

Lone parent Ukrainian women with children faced particular challenges within the housing market in attempting to secure suitably sized accommodation without a credit rating, no history of stable employment in the UK and often limited English proficiency. It was noted how difficult it is for people to find affordable options suitable for their needs and to be approved by private rental agencies to rent property without a guarantor.

The role of local authorities in providing support for Ukrainian refugees emerged as particularly important for many respondents, with tailored services existing precisely because of their route of entry, and the wrap-around support processes devised to aid integration for displaced women and children.

In one London Borough, local council support covered the initial rent for new tenancies, a deposit on a property and the cost of furniture. Being routinely assigned a Ukrainian-speaking housing officer also made a significant difference in navigating British bureaucracy. Some Ukrainian families benefited from a dedicated housing scheme in a north London field site that allowed them to secure accommodation within weeks. However, many still reported facing the broader challenges of finding accommodation in London: high rents, long searches for a suitable property, and struggling to make the transition from temporary to stable housing all impacted their sense of security and mental health. Respondents in some areas also reported “scams” and exploitative behaviour by agents when seeking accommodation; however, the presence of dedicated Ukrainian support schemes and formal state recognition of their status and entitlement (rather than being perceived as an individual asylum seeker) provided widespread sources of advice and, by default, something of a safety net. However, even in some urban areas, a number of housing support organisations were inaccessible to participants due to a lack of Ukrainian interpreters. Despite these challenges, overall, we found that participants in urban areas were largely content with their present location and expressed a desire to remain there during their time in the UK, citing accessibility of health services, schools, and good public transport, and the availabililty of provision such as shops, adult education opportunities and other facilities.

4.1.2. Hong Kongers

As noted, the majority of Hong Kongers arrived in the UK through the British National (Overseas) visa scheme. As such, they were precluded from either seeking social housing or applying for financial support to meet the high costs of renting. Although some Hong Kongers were able to move directly into relatively well-paid employment, in the vast majority of cases, participants had transferred savings to the UK to support themselves on arrival as they settled, and they had assumed that access to such resources would facilitate their ability to rent property if they were not in a position to purchase outright. However, our respondents reported encountering unexpected barriers to entering the rental market as they found themselves in the same position as any other migrant workers, or indeed British citizens without an established work and tenancy history. As this participant living in one of the East of England urban field sites explained,

“I think it’s because they do reference checks very seriously—and harshly… The reference check proves that you can afford the rent, [and] if you can’t prove that, some landlords ask you to pay the rent in advance… If you can’t pay in advance and can’t prove your income, you have to find a guarantor. But how can you find a guarantor here if you’re new? … The guarantor has to be a local. As a new migrant here, if you can’t find a guarantor, how can you rent a house? The only way is to get a job. Even if you do have a job, landlords still check references very strictly. For example, if you’re working part-time, they think it’s unstable. If you’re on a short-term contract and it ends halfway through your tenancy, they think you won’t have a salary to pay the rent. So, tenants need to find a full-time, permanent job. For people who are new here and have no [UK] work experience, it’s incredibly hard.”

Another participant from a city in the East of England also highlighted the recent policy changes (Renters Rights Act 2025; Goodlord 2026), which, while bringing some regulation into the private rental market, do not tackle the discrimination against new arrivals and so have resulted in additional difficulties in securing accommodation:

“Housing is an even bigger issue now because, quite recently, the UK government has been introducing rental reforms, and even local Brits are struggling with these changes. They are trying to ban upfront rent payments. That means if you don’t pass the credit check, you won’t even be considered for rental properties.”

In other field sites (particularly in London) our Hong Kong participants reiterated the significant challenges they had faced in finding secure, affordable housing on the open market, including experiencing multiple attempts to obtain suitable accommodation over a considerable period of time, extremely high deposits being required and not being able to access housing support via government or local authority schemes.

However, participants in field sites with a relatively high density of Hong Kongers and access to community organisations or networks reported that they were eventually able to find suitable housing with “word of mouth” referrals through their networks of friends and families. Some participants referred to making several moves until they were eventually satisfied with their accommodation or had built up enough of a rental and employment history to be able to obtain better-quality housing.

One theme that emerged strongly among this group of participants is that the quality of privately rented accommodation in the UK was seen as very poor when compared to their housing in Hong Kong. Problems with inadequate property maintenance, opaque management fees, and inconsistent and delayed responses from letting agents or housing management companies were common issues. While some participants eventually bought their own houses or secured higher-quality rental accommodation, others have remained in precarious conditions, reporting overcrowded shared spaces in rented homes and physically unsafe properties.

Participants from Hong Kong repeatedly expressed their frustration about the clear gap in accurate and accessible advice on their housing rights and the lack of support in obtaining suitable accommodation. As such, many Hong Kong participants felt uncertain about how to address housing issues or how to navigate other bureaucratic challenges.

4.2. Deserving/Undesirable Migrants

The second category of refugees we consider may (if we apply the CARIN framework) potentially be seen as morally deserving of support, but in popular discourse are often represented as less ‘assimilable’, culturally further from receiving populations and potentially representing a great ‘risk’ to the national good. It can be argued that when combined, these tropes lead to a perception that certain categories of asylum seekers and refugees are less ‘desirable’, regardless of the level of need and deserved claim to support from the State.

4.2.1. Afghans

Afghans have been permitted to come to the UK due to the UK’s commitment to providing safe and legal routes for those in need, predominantly aimed at those individuals who face particular risk because of prior work with the British military services, or their work on human and gendered rights. The UK government has implemented various resettlement schemes, such as the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), and the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) (Cuibus et al. 2025). The quality of support provided was highlighted as variable, depending on the scheme and route of entry. Participants stated that support workers were frequently unable to communicate well with those who had limited English proficiency, or where support workers only spoke one of the main languages common to Afghan asylum seekers. Further, participants reported that support teams often only had restricted ability to assist them beyond signposting to other services. Afghan participants who had applied for council accommodation repeatedly noted that they found their lack of knowledge of processes and lengthy waiting times for either appointments or to secure appropriate family-sized accommodation particularly difficult to navigate. One participant living in a small city said

“It was really hard for me. It was confusing for me, everything was new. We are in the queue … We are waiting for a house.”

Where support workers were able to provide individually tailored and nuanced assistance, it made a substantive difference to outcomes. As an Afghan participant living in another East of England urban location stated

“At the beginning … the problem was … the awareness and the information, how to find a house or … accommodation, and what are the regulations and policies, in terms of renting or housing? … So, all the things that have been done, it was because we had a social worker from some organisation, they were closely working with the councils. And they were doing these things on our behalf.”

Experiences inevitably varied depending on the pressure on housing stock in different resettlement areas. Residents of urban cities, such as London, experienced the most significant challenges in securing suitable accommodation. Participants in smaller, East of England cities reported finding accommodation (even with support) to be far more difficult than for participants in more rural localities. One Afghan from a city field site stated

“It’s not straightforward. When you want to swap your house [find other more suitable accommodation], it takes lots of time. For some people, it takes … around two, three years to change house, because … people are in a queue … and there is not any guarantee that you get your desired option.”

Even when able to access advice and support from statutory schemes, Afghan participants confirmed that they had experienced similar barriers to accessing privately rented accommodation to those reported by Hong Kongers and Ukrainians. These barriers for all our participants were exacerbated by reports of perceived discrimination and racism, particularly for Afghans and Syrians who frequently had to deal with negative presumptions around their culture, faith, and reasons for being in the UK, essentially, having to negotiate the impact of negative public and political discourse about Muslim (or those perceived to be Muslim) migrants (Culcasi 2024; Burbidge et al. 2025; Hend et al. 2025) which located them within the ‘undesirable’ category of asylum seekers and refugees.

Afghans in particular reported challenges around the size of accommodation available to them. One Afghan living in the East of England said

“We’re not happy with the size of the house. It’s … a tiny house … We have 2 kids, and it’s very hard for them to just move around.”

Where family members had significant health conditions or were living with disabilities, concerns were frequently noted about the housing that was available being unsuitable for their needs. Participants reported that even when they had diagnosed health or mobility impairments, they were generally unable to secure alternative accommodation either through social landlords or via private rental arrangements. One participant from another location reported that their family had been on a waiting list to move from a house to a bungalow for a considerable length of time:

“My husband can’t manage the stairs, you know … waiting … I mean, it is really hard [managing to support a household member with a disability who is unable to use the upper floors of the house].”

Single men in urban settings without dependents and who, in some cases, had come to the UK because of their service to the British military, were particularly disadvantaged by strict requirements imposed by landlords and long waiting times, even if they were eligible to obtain social housing. These men often ended up in temporary, overcrowded accommodation with poor conditions and little guidance on how to negotiate a transition to better quality housing. This situation was also reported by Afghan participants in urban and rural locations in the East of England.

For those participants resettled into rural areas in the East of England, particular additional challenges pertained to their visibility as members of a minority population who might be at risk of racism. For those without access to a car, and for women in particular who rarely drive, a lack of regular public transport was a commonly reported concern. One Afghan family noted that from the village they lived in, it took them over two hours of travel to reach their nearest city, requiring multiple buses. The impact of their level of isolation was keenly felt, particularly their distance from the mosque as a source of both religious and social support and solidarity. The inability to obtain halal food locally was also a cause of distress.

4.2.2. Syrians

The Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) was launched by the UK government in 2015 in response to the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011. This group of participants and other Syrians awarded refugee status, including those who entered the UK independently or who were students at the outbreak of the civil war and then claimed asylum, are eligible for statutory support regarding housing advice and provision in the same way as Afghans. This group reported many of the same issues as our Afghan participants, which is indicative of the prevalence of challenges particular to some categories of refugees.

One participant in a city in the East of England described how she was required to move house only months after moving in and shortly after having given birth:

“… after three months, they [the council] asked me to look for another house, and I had just given birth one month before… It was so hard … For seven or eight or nine months I was looking for a flat or anything … We started bidding [using a ‘points-based’ system common to social landlords] online … someone helped me with that. I didn’t know anything, because of my English.”

In contrast, Syrian participants in a different East of England urban site were able to use the resources of the local University of Sanctuary, drawing on support to secure housing belonging to the university as an initial form of accommodation on arrival in the city. However, one respondent living in that location, reported that their application for council housing was refused on the basis that they were already living in university accommodation and hence were not threatened with homelessness, despite the fact that rent increases made it impossible for them to remain in such housing. In common with other categories of participants, reference was repeatedly made to the challenges of either obtaining a guarantor for the rent or the requirement to have a large deposit:

“… to rent something … if you don’t have a guarantor … some of them [letting agents] say, ‘Oh, we will not allow you to rent at all,’ some of them accept if you pay six months in advance, [which is] what we did (Syrian, City in East of England).

Once again, the quality of housing was reported to be a key problem for many participants, with issues of mould and poor maintenance being particular causes for concern regardless of the type of landlord. For example, in one East of England city, a Syrian participant stated that despite the poor quality of the house that he and his family are living in, with damp impacting the health of his children who have respiratory conditions, the local authority has not provided him with support or alternative accommodation.3

Despite their residence in the UK for a longer period of time than other categories of participants, a number of Syrians highlighted that their present residence was unsuitable as a result of family members’ poor health or disability. Regardless of their refugee status and evidenced need, local authorities were overwhelmingly unable to provide them with alternative housing, even when they were effectively trapped in unsuitable accommodation. As one Syrian participant in London highlighted,

“I have disc problem in my back … weakness in my leg muscles, I have an issue getting up and downstairs… I always do it slowly. The outside stairs are always wet especially in wintertime, so I go up and down carefully not to slip.”

However, this respondent was also keen to note the positive aspects of his housing, including the security afforded by stable long-term residence, supportive neighbours and a sympathetic landlord as well as, by default, the advantages of living in an urban multi-cultural area with diverse populations and access to culturally congruent services, support networks and food sources. In contrast, another participant who has several children with special needs reported that they had been renting privately for over nine years before they were able to access suitable local authority-provided housing.

4.3. Undesirable and Undeserving

For the purposes of this paper we are focusing the discussion of this category of participant on those who are least likely to be seen as favoured migrants within the CARIN framework. Although we include here some individuals who have gained sanctuary through arrival on ‘schemes’ as outlined above, the group of asylum seekers/refugees who have attracted the greatest level of hostility and negative publicity are younger, single men who may have reached the UK through ‘irregular routes’, with single males frequently perceived, by default, as being undeserving or somehow morally flawed.

Some single men who arrived via a ‘scheme’ such as ARAP (for Afghans who had formerly worked with the military and who were thus at significant risk) or Syrians who had claimed asylum after entering on a student visa prior to their country experiencing civil war experienced challenges to accessing housing as a single person. However, for individuals who had reached the UK via irregular routes, their situation, even after gaining refugee status, has been particularly challenging. Our findings indicate that the intersection of being a single person not defined as vulnerable (for example, as a result of disability, or heightened risk associated with sexual orientation) and simultaneously having no clear entitlement to enhanced support services because of autonomous entrance to the UK enhances the likelihood of being seen as undesirable. This creates a perfect storm of precarity for this category of asylum seeker.

In one of our field sites, young single males live in a large-scale former military site in a rural location. The residents all entered the UK through ‘small boats’ across the English Channel. While such accommodation provides access to basic housing, food, medical care and a range of other services, the experience of living in such large carceral-type facilities has been mixed for participants, affecting them differently and varying according to situation, migration journey and health conditions. This latter includes mental illness and trauma, although screening occurs in an attempt to ensure those with identified significant mental health issues are not accommodated in such camps. Most participants accepted the basic nature of accommodation, viewing it as temporary, but commented that it could be very difficult to sleep in overcrowded, noisy rooms and with inhabitants not obeying camp rules. Other issues raised by some participants included dirty bathrooms and lack of basic hygiene in shared bedrooms.

Some people who arrived from Afghanistan via undocumented routes of entry should have been entitled to apply for a UK settlement scheme, but for various reasons, found themselves unable to do so. Therefore, on entering the UK irregularly, they were treated in the same way as other asylum seekers. The impact of this is that they have no access to the support that is provided for those on the ACRS, ARAP and ARP schemes, with a corresponding negative effect on their mental health in terms of access to housing. One Afghan man who entered the UK as an asylum seeker explained

“To be honest with you, no, it wasn’t that easy. It was quite challenging for me to find this accommodation … I used to live in a shared place, and I struggled a lot there … because different kinds of people were living in that place, and obviously, because of the cultures, I didn’t feel comfortable in that place, so that’s why I decided to apply for a council house or for a housing association, any of them.”

Other Afghans who have participated in this study have fled the Taliban regime but have no eligibility for resettlement schemes under the current criteria. One participant who has now been granted refugee status talked about the long process he went through to eventually secure housing:

“So I first went for the council house … but unfortunately, they refused me…I [then] tried to apply for the housing association, which I did, and they did accept me. So, after waiting for a long time, they offered me … a one-bedroom flat, which I’m very happy about.”

Although in this particular case, the outcome was eventually positive, with the participant being provided with suitable housing, the journey to this point was particularly difficult with immense negative impact on his mental health, as he explained:

“Oh, yeah, it ruined my mental health, honestly, because I was not feeling my best at that time. So, yeah, I struggle with my mental health, and I used to take medicine for that and I had even therapy for two years.”

Syrian people who entered via undocumented routes or who have changed visa status have experienced similar issues. In one London field site, Syrian participants talked of the stress of temporary hotel living, including lack of privacy, forced room-sharing and a lack of autonomy over food, as well as the insecurity and uncertainty occasioned by the short ‘move-on’ period from accommodation provided by the Home Office once refugee status has been granted. They all face similar issues as other groups in transitioning to private rentals, including strict landlord criteria and high costs. Many described their current homes as small, old and substandard, with issues such as mould, water leakage, heating issues, vermin and other pests, and delayed repairs due to unclear responsibilities between private landlords and the council where local authorities have supported families into private rental properties. Short-term fixes, for instance, spraying or painting over mould, were viewed as inadequate and distressing for residents.

Many single men we have interviewed have struggled to access support services due to language barriers or lack of knowledge of systems, and were ineligible for assistance to obtain social housing, leading to intense frustration and distress. Overall, the accommodation experiences of people who entered as asylum seekers, particularly those who were defined as arriving as ‘irregular migrants’, are marked by hardship, distress and lack of support. Participants spoke of struggling to adapt, citing language barriers, lack of access to advice and support, and enduring poor housing conditions that impacted their physical and mental health. Despite a desire to move home, for example, to quieter areas or where better educational or employment opportunities exist, high rent and limited housing options remained a significant hurdle for many.

5. The Geographies of Exclusion: Rurality Versus Urban Experience

Regardless of nationality and route of entry, participants who lived in more rural accommodation routinely stated that they faced challenges, such as accessing local transport links and services, including cultural and religious infrastructures, as well as feeling more isolated, with predictable impacts on their mental health.

Limited public transport was frequently not ‘joined up,’ so that someone could perhaps access a city or large town but then only have a very short, inadequate period of time there to meet their shopping, support or social needs before having to catch a bus back to their place of residence. This was repeatedly found to prove a significant barrier to people’s ability to secure employment, integrate into local communities or access services. Many participants were either unable or could not afford to drive, impacting their opportunities to engage with support networks or community-specific activities and increasing levels of stress and isolation for some. Ukrainian women who participated in the research reported that they found themselves isolated in a manner with which they were unfamiliar, and as such, commented on how much they appreciated the opportunities to gather with other Ukrainians during our field work activities.

Participants resettled into rural areas in the East of England were particularly articulate about the challenges that pertained to their new lives, in addition to the visibility, for some, as members of a minority population who were at risk of experiencing racism. For those without access to a car, and for women, especially, who rarely drive, a lack of regular public transport was a commonly reported concern. One Afghan woman noted that their home in a village required considerable amounts of travelling time to reach their nearest town by public transport (for example, to access a GP surgery or for an educational class), requiring both significant effort and the availability of bus connections. Even then, village residents without private transport or the financial means to hire a taxi needed to return to their village within a very short time frame, given rural bus timetables, which limited their opportunities to utilise shops, social activities and available services effectively. Other women (as confirmed by local stakeholders from professional services, whom we consulted within the project) referred to families without access to a car, or where public transport was very limited, undertaking dangerous walking journeys alongside major roads, pushing children in pushchairs. For other participants in a number of East of England rural locations, the impact of their level of isolation was keenly felt, causing significant emotional distress, particularly for women who might be alone for many hours of the day if their husbands were out and children were in school. In particular, members of one family noted that their distance from the mosque utilised by other Afghans, which would provide a source of religious and social support and the opportunity to converse with others in their first language, was a great hardship, as was their inability to obtain halal food locally.

The policy of dispersal for refugees, coupled with the participation of military and RAF services in the provision of accommodation for Afghans entering under ‘schemes’, makes it considerably more likely that some categories of participant will end up living in relatively isolated rural locations. Hosts participating in the Homes For Ukraine scheme in the East of England were also often located in more sparsely populated areas, and those exiting the scheme then needed to rely on rural district councils for help with housing, meaning that they could find themselves located in remote areas on a long-term basis. Some of our Hong Kongers also reported that affordability criteria and no recourse to public funds meant that they were living further from urban centres or small towns than was desirable, although findings are emerging that indicate that Hong Kong participants may be able to use community networks to access accommodation, particularly if someone moves on from renting to purchasing and their previous home becomes available to someone else from the community through word of mouth recommendation. The value of community knowledge was also highlighted by some Ukrainian women, with both groups referring to the fact that a landlord who had had a ‘good experience’ with someone from their community was potentially more likely to be willing to rent to a recommended tenant before the property came onto the open market.

The data we have gathered so far evidences the different ways in which refugees and asylum seekers access housing resources. We suggest that, in addition to the challenges of finding affordable rental accommodation, our participants are frequently impacted further by experiences of bias, particularly Muslim refugees who may have to battle Islamophobic and gendered stereotypes (McKanders 2019; Culcasi 2024). They may also have poorer English skills than some populations and, as outlined above, perhaps have larger families to accommodate. For these populations, the role of local authorities and support available through formal schemes is particularly important in challenging and engaging with the qualitative and quantitative frameworks outlined by Van Oorschot’s (2000) CARIN scheme and the work by Willen and Cook. (2016), which interrogate the contextual criteria that underpin bias formation.

6. Discussion

In this final section, we expand upon how the conceptualization of “desirable” and “undesirable” categories of refugees and asylum seekers outlined above and evidenced through the research findings play out in the lived experience of our participants. Yuval-Davis et al.’s (2018) concept of everyday bordering, where technologies of control4 interact with the politics of belonging, helps to explain the multiple dimensions of the processes at work which regulate access to housing at different scales, and via different actors, including councils, housing associations and private landlords. Conceptions of deservingness that inform policy entitlements afforded to those on resettlement routes and those who arrived through irregular means by default influence the impacts of such everyday bordering by state agents and over time, also seep into the private housing market. Based on our findings and self-reported comments around the impacts on the physical and mental health of experiences of housing and insecurity, we thus argue that public and policy perceptions of both individuals and categories of migrant, as operationalised through the implementation of the CARIN framework, have a direct impact on the social determinants of health and wellbeing of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.

As we have illustrated, some categories of individuals are framed as being more worthy of support, particularly those who may be seen as able to add net value to the overall polity of the UK, while others are represented as less worthy and potentially more likely to be “dependents” of the State. However, in reality, the levels of support available to those entering the UK on different ‘schemes’ based on perceptions of deservingness act as a self-fulfilling prophecy, impacting the pathways to self-determination as well as housing quality and location.

Our findings show that Ukrainians and Hong Kongers, who are portrayed as desirable/deserving migrants through their conceptualization in policy terms and the media, have variable experiences of housing access in the UK yet overall have a level of support (resulting from a combination of inter- and intra-community networks as well as their formal route of entry) that has facilitated a more positive experience overall for these nationality groups. The particularities of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, with the corresponding personal relationships formed, has contributed in many cases to easing entry to the private rental market. For Hong Kongers, their relative levels of affluence compared to other refugees, have provided a cushion against the financial demands of the rental sector in the short term. Despite this level of heightened support and opportunity for both populations, our findings demonstrate the challenges encountered at different times along their post-migration trajectory and the impact they have on individuals’ physical and mental health.

Our findings also demonstrate that Afghans and Syrians typically occupy a lower level of ‘deservingness’ in the perceptions of service providers and the public when contrasted to Ukrainians and Hong Kongers, despite the resettlement schemes that support both of these populations. The data evidences different access to housing resources, and as noted above, create specific challenges for these groups, and a consequent need for additional support to overcome such barriers. Further, there is often a tendency for these particular refugee groups to be represented as likely to be ‘dependent’ on services provided by civil society or the state, in a manner that minimises individual autonomy and the value to society of such refugees, as well as their potential future contributions to the nation-state.

For single male asylum seekers and refugees, particularly those who have entered the UK via irregular routes, the correlation between being represented as ‘undesirable’ migrants and the quality of accommodation and support offered to them can be particularly stark. The “warehousing” of asylum seekers who either entered the UK independently or who are not offered the level of support available to those who are in the UK on a formal scheme exacerbates both their visibility in many areas and the associated risk. With the rapidly changing policy environment in the UK (Gecsoyler 2025) and legislation that limits “irregular” migrants’ right to claim asylum (Home Office et al. 2025; UNHCR 2025), the terrain clearly emphasises their ‘undesirability’. Even if they receive a favourable decision, such refugees have already often been pushed to the margins of society, are typically resident in the most socially deprived areas, and are potentially already experiencing mental health challenges. Accordingly, men in this category of participant repeatedly report negative health impacts exacerbated by their living conditions.

While the literature clearly shows that housing precarity and poor-quality accommodation for refugees and migrants result in poor health and wellbeing outcomes (Phillimore et al. 2025; Brown et al. 2024; Rana et al. 2025; Goyder 2024), our results suggest that these outcomes vary by different populations, partly because they relate to conceptions of deservingness afforded to different nationality groups and those deemed worthy of UK government support. This framing has corresponding effects on the day-to-day implementation of policies by state agents and other actors within the housing sector. The ‘Need’ for basic provision is often prioritised over other elements of the CARIN schema (Van Oorschot 2000) in distinguishing those more worthy of access to ‘suitable’ accommodation, whereas elements impacting ‘Identity’ (for example, access to culturally familiar foods, service providers with cultural knowledge, places of worship, etc.) are seemingly often silenced or ignored in accommodation allocation.

Our findings suggest that the everyday bordering techniques (Yuval-Davis et al. 2018) deployed by the ever-increasing demands of the hostile environment in a politically and socially volatile context impact all categories of refugee and migrant participants to varying degrees regarding their health outcomes. However, the most significant impacts are on those with the least statutory support and protections—the ‘undeserving’ and ‘undesirable’. To a certain extent, support and protections offered to those on resettlement schemes serve to shield some from the worst manifestations of the housing sector, although this is inconsistent and context and situationally dependent. However, all the populations within our study, as the findings presented above show, are vulnerable at different points in their post-migration trajectory to the vagaries of the political and media rhetoric and public and state understanding and framing of the groups to which they belong.

For single men who entered on irregular routes, experiences varied significantly across field site locations, although we are aware of how accommodation providers in some locations are responding and engaging positively with concerns (for example, improved quality and quantity of food, and access to medical care and other services delivered on-site within large scale provision). However, for this group, whom we argue are potentially the most vulnerable of all our participants, initial experiences of sharing rooms in large barracks, in hotels, or in houses of multiple occupancy, coupled with widespread negative public discourse and political hostility, interplay to create especially challenging situations and a significant risk of exploitation for those who have not entered the UK on a scheme.

Regardless of the national origin of participants and their route of entry, there were common threads of concern around seeking accommodation and economic stressors impacting access to housing. For all groups, concerns which were emphasised included identifying appropriate (and affordable) locations to live, understanding bureaucratic barriers, how to find reliable advice on their rights so they could follow up on action themselves, and also navigating the settlement support system, which could be opaque at times.

Issues were repeatedly raised by participants about the material quality of their housing, in some cases within accommodation directly allocated to them on arrival in the UK, but most frequently with regard to the private rental sector. Their concerns about mould, poor maintenance, small spaces, noise, overcrowding, cultural estrangement and lack of accountability from councils and landlords mirror findings from the existing literature on post-migration accommodation (e.g., Robinson 2025; Migration Observatory 2024; Brown et al. 2024).

Our participants have overwhelmingly sought to assert their agency and autonomy in challenging and responding to the concerns outlined above, with individuals often using intra-community solidarity and support to seek to improve their circumstances (for example, word-of-mouth referrals to services, sharing information about processes or good-quality accommodation becoming available). Despite participants undertaking specific, often creative and innovative responses to their housing dilemmas, their route of access, legal status and whether they are seen as more or less “desirable” residents of the UK, with an independent income, access to employment, having a rental guarantor, a good standard of English language and clear understanding of bureaucratic processes, are clearly key to establishing a new life within Britain.

As such, it is crucial to consider the relationship between individual status and the schemes participants have been able to access, and to take a wider look at the causes of such accommodation precarity and potential ways forward to support those in greatest housing need (Waldron and Wijburg 2025). Housing quality and insecurity has become a growing issue across Britain (Harris and McKee 2021), particularly in higher-cost areas of England. This precarity is felt more deeply by those in the most challenging situations and living with insecurity, for example, families with children (Hock et al. 2024), single vulnerable people (Ortega-Alcázar and Wilkinson 2020), low-paid workers (Lombard 2023) or the unemployed. All of these categories are people who theoretically should be able to access social housing in Britain, but each is faced with accommodation shortages and other obstacles to obtaining secure accommodation.

There are a number of issues unrelated to asylum or migration status that impact the availability and supply of houses. These elements also increase competition throughout the market, impacting the ability to secure good-quality rental accommodation and incentivizing agents and landlords to accommodate the most ‘desirable’ tenants in better properties. Similarly, the outstripping of supply by demand creates a situation where some agents and landlords can exploit policies and procedures. In turn, this enables high rents to be charged to the most vulnerable tenants, who may have been actively directed into such private rental accommodation (including houses of multiple occupancy) by local authorities.

A frequently exploitative housing market is driven by a number of policy failures, for example, the lack of penalties or incentives for ensuring occupation of long-term empty homes—even though an empty and underutilised homes tax surcharge has slowly been implemented from 2024 (HM Government 2026), it is not illegal to leave a home empty in the UK and slow rates of house building with increasing rates of household formation are driving demand. These elements are exacerbated by a lack of state control over international absentee landlords who use companies to own multiple rental properties, making control of property conditions or tracking down rogue owners difficult, particularly when sub-letting of social housing may occur (Hickman and Robbins 2020). Crucially, the lack of rent control means that the private housing sector is market-driven and landlords or agents may evict tenants or enforce over-occupation of shared accommodation to maximise profits. In the under-supplied social housing sector, a reliance on registered social landlords, which may include arms-length agencies that can behave oppressively to tenants (McKelvie 2025) or routinely fail to ensure that maintenance is of an appropriate standard, can also drive down housing conditions. This reliance on particular types of housing providers creates a spiral where there are inadequate funds available to local authorities to support the delivery of additional low-rent properties. Indeed, despite the existence of subsidised rental charges (which within certain limits may be subject to annual increases above the inflation rate), social housing tenants will still frequently have to apply for universal credit benefits to meet the cost of their rent if they are on low wages or unemployed. Additionally, social housing rent may include an element for service charges, which can fluctuate depending on repairs required in blocks of flats or estates, adding additional costs either for tenants who are already often on a low income, or for local authorities if a tenant is in receipt of benefits to support their housing expenses

These issues affect all people who are struggling to rent a home or buy a house (Office for National Statistics 2024; Resolution Foundation 2025). Accordingly, the widespread perception within the media and some political discourse that issues of undersupply of housing are exacerbated by asylum seekers (Serpa 2024; Doherty 2025; Refugee Action 2025) simply deflects and masks the long-standing challenges already in place, serving to further exacerbate the sense of worth, desirability and undesirability of certain refugee groups.

The context of refugees searching for homes in this societal situation only increases the pressure for available and appropriate accommodation. Ironically, the construction sector is struggling to respond to shortages of homes to rent or buy, due to a growing deficit in the skilled trade workforce. Yet historically, new migrants (particularly young men) have entered employment sectors like construction and other roles requiring manual labour, contributing to the growth of cities while also gaining autonomy. The policy focus on migration control and restrictions placed on asylum seekers who are eager to work (and who may already possess needed practical construction or trade skills, as we have discovered in our fieldwork) has thus made access to such historic routes to employment all the more challenging, considering the needs in the sectors and the pressures that so many people face due to undersupply of housing. In the field of construction, for example, the very industry responsible for building new homes, there is an expected workforce deficit of 225,000 by 2027 (CITB 2023; Bourne n.d.).

The perception of skilled versus unskilled migrants we introduce here could be seen as feeding into the deserving or non-deserving discourse, but the system of gathering these kinds of critically important details about migrant populations’ prior experience, skills and qualifications is inefficient, such that modes of entry and nationality will still prevail as the early factors influencing perceptions of worthiness. The bias of deservedness will already have shaped individuals’ circumstances in terms of housing, location of residence and degree of self-determination long before the documentation of skills, training or employment capacity has been captured. The growing need for skilled trades or those keen to be trained is growing exponentially and is directly linked to the lack of housing stock. For example, the take-up of apprenticeships in the traditional trades is low and currently there are 100 job vacancies for every skilled applicant (Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions 2026), circumstances which continue to threaten housebuilding and infrastructure development targets. There are many reasons for this, including ineffective links forged between employers and new migrants who are potentially willing to train and work to meet this growing workforce demand.

The immense economic stimulus afforded by construction is also critical to broader economic growth. Hence, working with local companies that produce or procure building materials and including recruitment from the refugee workforce could both stimulate local economies as well as create job opportunities, providing significant value for all local residents.

An important first step to such workplace integration would be to identify the skills, training, competency and experience of refugees who are able to work, along with those willing to be trained. Many countries, including Australia, Germany, India and South Africa, adopt testing to evidence the skill levels of trades and professionals, or propensity for training, or offer help to those with completed or partially completed qualifications to complete their courses, enabling them to continue their development in that field of work post-migration (Assessment Abroad 2025). Such a model would be especially beneficial in those areas where workers are sought after, such as healthcare, technology and those working in skilled construction within the renewable energy trades. Countries that are signatories to the Lisbon Recognition Convention have processes in place to assess qualifications where documentation is limited or not available, with such processes handled by the national information centres. Although the UK is also a signatory member to the Convention, the country has not managed to efficiently enable mechanisms for discerning refugees’ qualifications, not only further frustrating the process of rebuilding the lives of those who have been displaced, but also negatively impacting the communities that would benefit from such skills and industries that deliver relevant training and education. It can perhaps be argued that by short-sightedly failing to ensure adequate access to training and employability for refugees, the UK’s failure to utilise pre-existing or latent skills and knowledge once again engages with a normative presumption that such migrants have little to offer, and are less deserving of opportunities than other British residents and citizens.

Whilst countries including the UK, Canada and Australia do collaborate with non-governmental organisations, such as Talent Beyond Boundaries and Talent Lift, which facilitate qualification and skills registration to enable matching refugees with employers in need of specific skills, such schemes are not unproblematic and may not be utilised in a systematic way. It is also important to reflect upon how these kinds of mechanisms, while helpful, can also exacerbate the perception of desirable, undesirable or deserving individuals, differentiating and placing a value on some migrants over others, and thereby potentially limiting refugees’ capacity for future socio-economic contributions or opportunities to prepare to enter into the workforce. Apart from the inefficiencies of documenting qualifications and transferable skills and the lack of a calibrated nationwide monitoring of workforce shortages in certain sectors or across particular regions, more immediate factors impacting refugees’ opportunities to enter employment include their country of origin, varying access to ESOL classes to enhance necessary English language skills, and potential eligibility for stable housing, all of which intersect with their route of entry. Accordingly, there are multiple factors that continue to frame public perceptions of the desirability, ability to integrate and value to the nation-state of certain groups of migrants.

The Displaced Talent Pathways Pilot (which concluded in November 2024) was another programme with which the UK engaged. This scheme was designed to help to connect a relatively small number of qualified refugees from Syria and Afghanistan with areas where there were labour market gaps. Whilst this scheme has helped facilitate access to employment and a more settled life post-migration, not only has it not been renewed, indicating that perhaps it was not seen by policy makers to be as successful as hoped, but further, a risk exists that possession of immediately recognisable skill sets has served to create early post-migration framing of “deservedness,” which ironically may limit capacity for access to training that other refugees may require to enable them to quickly become an integrated citizen socially, financially and materially. In particular, this is more likely to be the case in sectors where there is less of a workforce deficit and there is more competition for certain kinds of (often higher-status and better-paid) employment

Interlaced throughout the findings section, we have seen that participants emphasised repeatedly the notion of self-determination regarding the location of their residence. Within the dispersal system for asylum seekers, there is a self-evident loss of autonomy and self-determination, as being moved around the country, often at short notice, creates a resultant risk of displacement from communities and cultural networks, which has been shown to cause significant distress as well as minimising opportunities to engage with sources of advice or knowledge exchange that may lead to employment. Participants repeatedly indicated that being able to live in towns or with access to services, being able to support and engage with other members of their communities, and having access to employment and to good schools were key to good mental health. Accordingly, the context of accommodation (by initial location and proximity to community assets and services) is without doubt critical to the quality of life for migrant refugees and asylum seekers in our sample.

As such, while we see that there is a need to provide routes into appropriate housing, establishing greater possibilities for self-determination and agency over place of residence are as vital to mental health as the conditions in which people live. However, to date, the UK government response to accommodation has been focused on immediate provision for asylum seekers (for example, hotel provision or, at the time of writing, transitioning to houses of multiple occupancy, which are increasingly located in cheaper, often rural areas, Home Office 2026).

Through co-creating solutions that speak to both policy and practice change, it is possible to begin to create a better balance between framing categories of asylum seekers and migrants as either more or less deserving, or perceived as “beneficiaries,” and move towards perceiving and treating them as individuals who can often bring immense value to their new country of residence. If a focus thus exists on creating the conditions for a more even balance where appropriate high-quality support is available during the crucial early transition period, enabling people to settle and recover from trauma, and in turn, a more level playing field comes into existence which supports self-determination and positively values all that refugees bring to British society, not only individuals and communities, but also the economic and psychological wellbeing of the nation will be enhanced (Rakesh et al. 2025).

Research tells us inequality affects all of society, while increased equity has beneficial impacts for all (World Health Organization 2025). The examples of support and good practice we have discussed above, while focused on the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, can also reinforce and inform systems currently in place. Engaging with such barriers to integration is a matter of social justice, acting to dismantle barriers and challenge perceptions of who and what constitutes a ‘valuable citizen’ (Shutes 2016; Dean 2018). Such a reshaping of perceptions will ultimately benefit not only refugees and migrants, but also other vulnerable groups in general society, enabling Britain to move towards becoming a fairer and healthier nation.

Limitations

There are a number of limitations to this study, not least that findings emerge primarily from the self-selected nature of the sample. We do not have access to a representative sample, and for some categories of participants, there is insufficient variation in terms of age, self-disclosed levels of disability, and gender identity or sexual orientation to offer adequate granularity of understanding of experience.

The fact that access and quality of accommodation is but one aspect of the core themes to be interrogated within the study, and that by definition, the majority of participants have entered under particular schemes, may potentially be counted as a further limitation impacting the transferability of knowledge gained within this study. However, the experiences of single irregular male migrants and ongoing ‘follow-up’ post-decision interviews will support and nuance our findings further as data continues to be gathered.

We have not specifically focused on experiences of discrimination and bias in this study, but by default, this has emerged, enabling us to theorise and posit evidence linking status and route of entry to the formation of bias against such participants. Whilst we are able to theorise how this affects the experience of resettlement of our core populations, we are unable to test the applicability of these findings to other nationalities or migrant groups where public conceptions of deservingness may differ.

Despite this, our empirical evidence indicates that participants experience and self-identify bias (which may be unintentional and unrecognised by state actors) in the allocation of housing and access to support and services, negatively impacting their mental health and indeed physical wellbeing if accommodation is of poor quality. Whilst to some extent this may also be an artefact of the location of dispersal (with urban contexts offering greater infrastructure and support), variations in experience suggest that account is typically not taken of the particular needs of individual refugees or their communities when considering what offers the most appropriate form of accommodation.

As we have discussed above, the reification of the concept of ‘need’ within the CARIN framework seemingly results in refugees, migrants and asylum seekers being framed as supplicants, benefiting from the provision of statutorily provided accommodation, or the right to seek their own housing in the UK, but always within the context of greatly reduced autonomy, even when refugee or humanitarian protection has been attained.

Whilst we intend to explore these elements further as we present findings to participants and stakeholders in the final year of our study, we emphasise that there is currently no consistent evidence of policy makers and stakeholders’ application of bias, whether and how early bias may come into play (or precisely where and how it is built into asylum systems), and if there is any awareness of or knowledge amongst those tasked with supporting participants into accommodation that bias may exist. Crucially, there is also a lacuna of evidence on whether checks are built in to interrogate or correct such risk, which can, as we have shown, have long-term and damaging impacts on the health and wellbeing of those who have sought a new life in the UK.

7. Conclusions

In conclusion, this paper has argued that concepts of deservingness and desirability related to nationality, legal status, route of entry and access to resettlement schemes affect housing pathways, which in turn have corresponding negative impacts on health outcomes. The effects of these conceptions in combination with the hostile environment structures that inform housing policies at local and national levels and the effects of everyday bordering have differential repercussions for discrete categories of refugees and migrants, contingent on geographical and local contexts. Accordingly, the pressures of securing safe and stable housing that is both affordable and financially sustainable for refugees and their families represent a continual struggle which contributes to the long-term burden on physical and mental health, as well as impacting participants’ ability to rebuild a meaningful life in Britain.