They Aren't Asylum Seekers. They're Refugees.

This Standard headline is definitely misleading, but maybe not in the way you might think.

It is, however, correct to highlight that the figures are shocking.

The article covers the latest Combined Homelessness And Information Network (CHAIN) report on rough sleeping in London. It found that from April 2025 to March 2026, there were 12,938 people seen sleeping rough in London.

This was the first fall (down from 13,231 the year before) in rough sleeper numbers in London since 2017/18, excluding the Covid years, when a lot of effort was put in to get rough sleepers off the streets, which is obviously good news, but there’s plenty of work still to be done.

The majority (8078) were new rough sleepers, of whom 6431 were identified, with some details recorded.

Of this group, 4,978 had a known “last settled base”. And of those, 1037 (20.8%) had indeed been in asylum support accommodation immediately before becoming a rough sleeper.

However, this does not mean they are asylum seekers.

Further down the report, we find that 920 of the 1037 had been granted refugee status by the Home Office. They are no longer asylum seekers, but are now legally recognised REFUGEES.

In fact, the most common reason for being homeless amongst all new rough sleepers (with a known last settled base) was being granted refugee status and coming to the end of a time-limited stay. It beat both relationship breakdown and the combined arrears/debts scenarios as the main reason for being homeless.

And that is why I say the headline is correct to highlight how shocking these figures are.

While there was a pilot run to allow people 56 days to find new accommodation after being granted asylum, up from the previous 28 days, that pilot ended in March, and the government appears to have settled on 42 days.

So imagine you’ve managed to flee your own dangerous country and you get yourself to the UK. You’ve spent months and possibly years holed up in asylum accommodation, being moved around regularly, unable to work, battling a Home Office that really doesn’t want you here, waiting for a decision on your claim.

You finally get a decision.

Your claim is indeed valid, and you’re granted asylum.

You are officially a refugee and allowed to start rebuilding your life.

Except now you have just 42 days to find a job and accommodation, when you haven’t been allowed to work for months/years, and in all likelihood have no work history or rental history in the UK.

It sadly doesn’t seem that surprising that ~20% of all new rough sleepers on London streets are those with a new refugee status.

Whenever the conversation comes up around housing asylum seekers or refugees, someone will always pop up to suggest we shouldn’t be housing them “while we have army veterans/British people on the streets”.

However, it really isn’t an either/or situation morally, and nor is it the case when we look at the numbers.