Dispelling myths about migrants and housing

Migrants are often blamed for housing shortages, but the truth is they stand less of a chance of getting social housing than people born in the UK. This blog details some of the common claims we hear about migrants’ housing rights that are untrue or only partially true, to dispel the myths with facts.

People with local connections receive housing before migrants

New migrants arriving in the UK aren’t eligible for social housing except in very limited circumstances (e.g. a spouse forced to leave home because of domestic violence). Most people who come to the UK on visas to work or study have ‘no recourse to public funds’ and can’t receive benefits or get help with their housing. In any case, many councils now have ‘local connection’ rules which favour longstanding residents in their allocations policies, rather than newcomers such as migrants. So migrants generally have much less ‘right’ to a social home than people born in the UK, and often have far less chance of getting one even if they eventually become eligible.

The housing crisis is due to a lack of new homes being built, not due to rising migration

Of course, migration adds to housing demand. Net migration (numbers arriving minus numbers leaving) peaked in 2022 at 764,000. However, this was an unusual period, with travel recovering after the pandemic, more people with work visas and international students arriving, and exceptional numbers of refugees being welcomed to the UK from Hong Kong and Ukraine.

Since the peak in 2022, net migration has fallen and the Office of National Statistics projects it to level out at around 315,000 per year from 2028. The UK population is projected to reach 70 million by mid-2026 and, without migration, growth would be much slower. However, the gap between housing supply and demand is so big that even if migration stopped completely, new house building would still fall well short of what’s required.

There’s no straightforward link between migration and housing demand

The extent to which population growth affects housing demand depends on the economy – separate households only form when they can afford to, otherwise people share, live with parents etc. Also, practically all recent migrants either use the private rented sector or use tied accommodation (farm workers, hospitality workers), student residences or share with others. This means they have much less impact on housing demand than their numbers suggest.

Migrants have very few rights and access to support when they arrive

A previous home secretary claimed that migrants without permission to stay can still ‘access everything they need’. But migrants now face document checks in England before they get tenancies. The same applies when they use the NHS, they go for a job or open a bank account. Migrants trying to regularise their documents must overcome formidable legal obstacles and pay massive fees. This so-called ‘hostile environment’ aims to deter undocumented migrants, but it in practice it affects all migrants and even British citizens such as those who don’t have passports, as we saw with the ‘Windrush’ scandal when thousands of people who had lived here most of their lives, lost jobs, their homes, and their benefits.

Asylum seekers aren’t eligible for council housing

People who apply for asylum get very limited help from the state. If they are ‘destitute’ they get free accommodation, now provided by private companies like Serco and normally in older properties leased from landlords. They get just £49 per week to pay for food and all their expenses.

In March 2024, about one-third of asylum seekers were in hotels, but this number is declining. They only get £8 per week for living expenses.

Asylum seekers can’t get council housing nor are most allowed to work (except in a small number of cases).

Asylum seekers who are eventually accepted as refugees are eligible for social housing, but few succeed in getting it because they have a maximum of 28 days to leave their asylum accommodation and arrange all their paperwork. They are given five years permission to stay in the UK and often are (wrongly) discriminated against because they only have limited, not indefinite, leave to remain.

Only the small numbers of refugees who come direct to the UK on special schemes (like those evacuated from Afghanistan) might get social housing – and even then, they may spend long periods in temporary accommodation beforehand.

Migrants contribute more to taxes than they use in public services

The Migration Observatory has collated all the evidence on whether migrants pay more in taxes than they receive in services, and almost every study shows that they do. An important factor to bear in mind is that new house building, care services and many other parts of the economy depend heavily on migrant workers. Tougher migration policies might make it more difficult to solve Britain’s housing problems, not less.

And despite the growth in the percentage of people in the UK who were born abroad, foreign nationals still account for only 10% of new lettings made by social landlords. Of course, the percentage is higher in places where more migrants live, but the overall picture is that nine out of ten new lettings go to British nationals.

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