Opening Doors Improving housing services for refugees and new migrants
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Opening Doors
Improving housing services for
refugees and new migrants
TOOLKIT
OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT
As a housing provider, do you want to open your doors to working with
refugee and migrant communities? – if so, this Toolkit will help you!
What is Opening Doors?
Over a period of two and a half years, with backing from the Tenant Services Authority and
Communities and Local Government, the Opening Doors project aimed to mainstream
approaches to meeting the housing needs of refugees and of other new migrant
communities. Jointly managed and delivered by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH)
and hact (Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust), Opening Doors built expertise among
11 housing associations and their strategic partners in six different areas of England. Details
of all the partners are given at the end of the Toolkit.
What is in the Toolkit?
This Toolkit aims to encourage other organisations to develop similar initiatives to Opening
Doors, by drawing on the insights and tools that have been developed by CIH, hact and the
Opening Doors partners. This Toolkit can help organisations starting new projects or
reorienting their service delivery, to meet the needs of refugees and new migrants.
Here are the 12 tools in the Toolkit with relevant links. Click on the live link in each case to
be directed to the relevant resource (or reopen the original pdf while connected to the
internet, if you have printed it out). At the end are details of further information, including
how to contact CIH or hact for further advice.
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OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT
1 GETTING STARTED
First of all, learn about how housing
associations got started with their work on
refugees and new migrants from Inside
Housing.
Download the article here
2 TRAINING
Ten training modules were developed to help housing
organisations train staff in understanding and providing
services to refugees and migrants. They will need
adapting and (possibly) updating to meet your local
needs. Download the modules here
One partner, St Vincent’s HA, condensed the material
into awareness-raising sessions for all staff while
ensuring that some key staff were on top of the more
detailed information. The St Vincent’s HA staff training
materials are here
3 SURVEYS AND LOCAL STUDIES
Lots of other housing organisations, local authorities and regional bodies have carried out
studies of the needs of new migrants. For Opening Doors, we summarised a sample of
them and you can see a literature review here
New information and research is appearing all the time. Your local Regional Strategic
Migration Partnership may be a useful source of up-to-date information. They cover the
English regions, Wales and Scotland and have their own web pages such as this one
The best guide to local statistics and surveys is published by the Local Government
Association – see ‘Where to get more information and guidance’ below.
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OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT
4 FINDING OUT ABOUT NEEDS IN MORE DETAIL
Surveys can only tell you so much – you will need to talk to new communities themselves.
Following research by Salford University about new migrants’ awareness of housing options,
St Vincent’s HA set up and carried out some focus groups. These have gathered information
on how new migrant workers find out about their housing and other needs. Read about
what they did here
Longhurst Homes employed an East European development worker when their contract
with the local authority came to an end so as to build better understanding of the needs of
the new migrant population. The worker proved vital in establishing contact with local
migrant communities. Find out more from the evaluation report
5 ENTITLEMENTS TO HOUSING
How do you know if someone who is a refugee or new migrant is entitled to get housing
or be helped if they are homeless? This is a complex area. At the outset of the project we
identified that frontline housing staff needed a source of clear, concise and up-to-date
information. Most studies have also highlighted a need for better information targeted at
new migrants themselves. The Opening Doors housing rights website gives you up-to-date
guidance. Check it out at www.housing-rights.info
CIH did research in 2008 into the use made by migrants of social housing, which may be
useful in dispelling myths.
6 USING ACTION LEARNING
Opening Doors partners worked together
in four ‘Action Learning Sets’ which
supported and challenged their work,
enabling them to build on each others’
experiences.
Find out more about Action Learning Sets
here
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OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT
7 PROVIDING HOMES
New homes for refugees are
being provided by partners
Tuntum, Staffordshire and Accord.
Find out more here
8 SERVICES FOR REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS
Housing providers can do much more than provide housing:
• St Vincent’s set up a driving course based at their Urban Care Centre
• Tuntum HA set up a floating support service called Refugee Futures
• Tuntum and other Opening Doors partners take part in the annual Refugee Week
• Horton Housing provides a central referral point for refugees to get housing and related
advice following a decision on their asylum application, as well as a generic refugee
support service at Bevan House
9 THE GATEWAY PROTECTION PROGRAMME
The ‘Gateway’ programme aims to
support settlement of refugees coming
direct to the UK from overseas refugee
camps, supported by the United Nations
High Commission for Refugees.
Learn about how local authorities and
housing providers have responded to
Gateway from pages 27-28 of the
Opening Doors report, and learn more
about the Gateway programme here
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OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT
10 GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR REFUGEE INTEGRATION
The government runs a new service across the
UK called RIES (Refugee Integration and
Employment Service). Opening Doors partners
learnt about RIES and made contact with their
local providers.
Find out more yourselves here and read about
the challenges of dealing with housing needs in
hact’s report Insights into the SUNRISE experience
available here
11 A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO SERVICES FOR REFUGEES AND NEW MIGRANTS
None of this work can be done in isolation. Housing providers need to work together, and
in collaboration with local authorities. Ideally there should be a strategic approach to
identifying the needs of new migrants and to working with new communities to adapt and
provide services for them. Earlier in the Toolkit the Regional Strategic Migration Partnerships
were mentioned – they are key to a strategic approach. But the needs of refugees and
migrants should also be built into local strategies.
In Southampton, one of the Opening Doors partner areas, this was done and this report
tells you how.
12 THE OPENING DOORS PROJECT
Finally, do you want to see in detail what the partners did and
how it worked out?
Download the full Opening Doors report from the hact website
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OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT
WHERE TO GET MORE INFORMATION AND GUIDANCE
Below are some of the key sources that were used in Opening Doors, and links to where to
get them.
From CIH and hact
Housing and Support Services for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A good practice guide –
available from CIH at www.cih.org/publications/pub357.htm
Community Cohesion and Housing: A good practice guide – available from CIH at
www.cih.org/publications/pub655.htm
Accommodate – details of five practical local partnerships established to improve services
for refugees and involve and support refugee community organisations
www.hact.org.uk/downloads.asp?PageId=89
Communities R Us – material from the project which aims to build better relationships
between long-established and new communities
www.hact.org.uk/downloads.asp?PageId=155
Government and other sources
Crossing Borders: Responding to the local challenges of migrant workers – available from
the Audit Commission with other resources at
www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nationalstudies/communitysafety/crossingborders/
Pages/Default_copy.aspx
Managing the Impacts of Migration: A cross-government approach – available from CLG at
www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/migrationimpact
Estimating the Scale and Impacts of Migration at Local Level – available from the LGA at
www.lga.gov.uk/lga/publications/publication-display.do?id=22422
Home from Home – Addressing the issues of migrant workers’ housing – available from
BSHF at www.bshf.org/published-information/publication.cfm?thePubID=
2EED9E14-15C5-F4C0-998CFFEC3D54FF93
Web pages
New European Migration toolkit and other material – available from IDeA (registration required)
www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=6949778
Statistics, briefing papers and much more on asylum and refugees from ICAR
www.icar.org.uk/
Information on migrants’ rights from the Migrant Rights Network
www.migrantsrights.org.uk/
If you want to contact CIH or hact direct, email policyandpractice@cih.org or hact@hact.org.uk
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OPENING DOORS TOOLKIT
Who were the OD partners?
Chartered Institute of Housing www.cih.org
hact www.hact.org.uk
Bradford
Accent Group www.accentgroup.org
Horton Housing www.hortonhousing.co.uk
Manningham HA www.manninghamhousing.co.uk
Birmingham
Accord Housing Group www.accordha.org.uk
Represented by
Birmingham Cooperative Housing Services www.bchs.org.uk
Southampton
First Wessex Housing Group www.firstwessexhg.co.uk
Nottingham and Lincolnshire
Tuntum HA www.tuntum.co.uk
Longhurst Homes www.longhurst-group.org.uk
Bolton
St Vincent’s HA www.svha.co.uk
Stoke-on-Trent
Blue Mountain HA and Staffordshire HA www.staffshousing.org.uk
© Chartered Institute of Housing and Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust 2009
Design by: Jeremy Spencer
Photographs courtesy of Longhurst Homes, hact (Paula Solloway), St Vincent’s HA and Tuntum HA
While all reasonable care and attention has been taken in compiling this publication, the publishers regret that
they cannot assume responsibility for any error or omissions that it contains.
The publishers give permission for this document to be reproduced or transmitted either in its entirety or
partially, providing that the publishers and the source are acknowledged.
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