In 2007, Positive Action in Housing (PAiH) organised a Sleepout in Glasgow’s George Square. The Sleepout was a symbolic action to highlight destitution amongst refused asylum seekers and the UK government’s policy of starving people out of this country to stop them claiming refuge. Every week PAiH gives out hundreds of pounds of money collected from public donations to prevent refused asylum seekers from starving on the streets. “We believe it is a disgrace that people are being left hungry and absolutely destitute in Scotland as a result of a policy emanating from Westminister”.
This action forms part of a much wider strategy by PAiH, a Scotland-wide organisation based in Glasgow, to support the right of everyone to live in a safe home, free from racist harassment or discrimination, and to challenge the systematic abuse of human rights in the country.
Take your lead from your clients
PAiH grew out of an earlier organization established in the 90s, focusing on racial harassment and housing. Crucial to the way it has developed since then has been its commitment to working with communities at grass roots level, and to be led by what is happening to its clients and within neighbourhoods.
PAiH is currently witnessing unprecedented levels of poverty, despair and racism, with its caseworkers and volunteers dealing with the crisis of absolute destitution confronting asylum seekers unable to return to their countries of origin, and needing food and shelter.
PAiH’s reaction to this has been a mixture of high and low profile actions: individual casework around homelessness, racial harassment and overcrowding; emergency assistance through private donations of cash and emergency shelter through hostels and volunteers; anti-deportation campaigns; organizing and supporting candle-lit vigils; supporting those who take direct action, such as barricading Home Office buildings or preventing officials from removing families in dawn raids.
“ The work around dawn raids and detention of asylum seekers came out of our clients’ experience. People were coming in with this rather than other sorts of housing advice. So we had to take up these issues and change our services to suit those who were coming in. We had to move beyond general housing work and look at why kids were being locked up in detention centres, why people were only given vouchers to buy food and so on. We had to move to a more campaigning position as well as trying to provide direct help here in our service.”
What drives PAiH is not its own survival, but that of the people who come to it. “We started small and from the grassroots and have grown from there. But we haven’t aimed to grow. What we’ve aimed for is to actually DO something. If we simply try to get bigger and bigger we will probably end up like the others – only sustainable with support from the State. We try to be organised but we don’t assume a future. In fact we have reinvented ourselves a few times as the people who come to us have changed and the issues affecting them. We need to keep up with changing issues and stay fresh. It helps that we are close to the ground and that we have volunteers, who help to keep us sharp.”
Be close to the ground
PAiH’s success stems from its base in the grass roots and its practical commitment to its clients. The campaigns against dawn raids and detentions have mobilised large numbers of people and in some cases been highly successful. But this has depended on a lot of locally based activity.
“In England dawn raids run at about 80% but in Scotland it is less than 50%. This isn’t just us though. The impact comes because of the degree of anger in local communities about the way in which asylum seekers are treated and a willingness to take action. This action results in individual successes. For example in Kingsway, 120 local people turned out to resist the dawn raids and the police and immigration had to call it off. Getting to this position involved a lot of running around the estate and door knocking. It’s hard work but exciting too. But since that action the authorities haven’t got anyone off that estate.”
“…there is support out there if you are prepared to be visible and it is across a wide spectrum. For example we went canvassing on these issues in the Gorbals which got a bit scary, but if you approach people openly you can be surprised by the reaction. Use of language is important and making the issues real for people. You have to avoid using the establishment’s language. We were told that we should describe dawn raids as ‘early morning visits’. We found out that lots of young people were outraged when they realised that immigration officials take asylum seekers’ mobiles off them. They begin to see the point when they are given examples like this.”
Speak out, be tactical
PAiH will not be silenced about the situation and perspectives of its clients. “To do this, we must be free to reflect to wider society, the issues affecting their lives, including racist attacks, overcrowding, destitution, detention and the terror of dawn raids. If we stop talking about what is really happening, we stop representing the reality facing some of the most voiceless and disenfranchised people in our society.”
PAiH thinks carefully about the best way to get the changes that are needed for its clients. And it’s not easy, with powerful intimidating forces rallied against them. “We get a lot of hate mail that comes in. But there you go, that’s par for the course. We also attracted the attention of the Charity Regulators about the dawn raids and our support for the protests. Together with the trustees we had to consider all this and think through different ways of doing all this. But this doesn’t involve us compromising on our objectives or supporting those who need us – we won’t do this.”
“We are not into protest as such, as a matter of principle, it’s just a tactic that is necessary on this issue at this point in time. We also talk about other tactics – pressure on the First Minister, using other political figures and so on. We are very cautious about what we put out.”
Create a life line – work with others
PAiH tries to work with as wide a range as possible of organisations and individuals provided this does not compromise its objectives.
“…our stance is always that we are ‘non-political’. There have been attempts to get us into a position of being seen to take a political side e.g. the Tories thought they had a chance of using us against New Labour, and other parties have tried the same, but we saw that off.”
“The work we carried out in 2007 was formidable. We were able to do it because of our supporters, our members and funders. And because of the individual acts of human kindness from everyone who gave their time, ideas, money or a spare room to help us make a difference”.
When seeking support from individuals for campaigns, PAiH tries to take a flexible approach. And it has to think carefully about how to support some kinds of campaigning activity.
“We find support from wherever and ensure that all involved understand what they’re getting into. And different people offer support in different ways. Some people give us some money and others don’t want their name used publicly. We have also developed ways to keep activities separate from government funds – the destitution fund for example is kept separate to ensure every penny goes directly to the people its meant to help.”
A public profile
PAiH puts a lot of effort into publicity and promotion – to publicise the issues on which it is campaigning, and to make itself visible to potential supporters, “this tells people what’s happening and is part of making a noise, but it also attracts support”.
The latest Annual Report shows that the organisation and its work generated on average one newspaper article per week, in a wide variety of papers.
“If you want to do something hard enough you can find the money for it”
PAiH maintains its freedom of action partly through ensuring its financial support come from a wide range of sources. These do include government, as well as the Lottery and various trusts.
“Independence is very important to our ability to speak out. And crucial here is maintaining funding diversity. Finance comes first here. Maybe a quarter to a third of our money comes from statutory sources but we hedge it so we are not too dependent on any one source. Government give us maybe £100,000 a year for various projects. But we have other funding – and reserves – so we would have maybe a year’s worth of complaining left if we lost funds from a particular source. The safety and the freedom that comes with that means that anyone who wants to make their organisation truly independent i.e. user led, has to get their money in place. But never sell out your principles, your service users. There may be some money you can’t take.
Although PAiH is flexible about whom it works with and where the money comes from, it is also very clear about the boundaries of what it will and won’t accept. Specifically, it won’t accept funding for directly providing a state service – contrasting this, for example, with the Scottish Refugee Council which has a contract with the Home Office to, effectively, process asylum seekers:
“This is exactly the sort of thing we won’t accept money for because it compromises you – you’re working for the government, not the client or the service user. You’re effectively pushing them into a system because you have various contracts that you have to meet. So you have to fight this and be savvy enough to hold support from other people.”
Being established as a business as well as a charity is important for PAiH’s independence. The organisation puts a lot of effort into raising funds from its own sources – eg room hire, selling publications, donations, advertising (adverts in PAiH’s multi-faith wall planner raised £14k last year, and ads in its Annual Report raised over £8k). Fundraising of this kind currently runs at 30% of total income, a proportion which PAiH intends to increase.
PAiH has established a hardship fund so it can give small amounts of money to people who are absolutely destitute. It has managed to fund this through private donations, and also to find volunteers who will open their homes in emergency to people who contact them in desperate straits.
PAiH’s story is drawn from its most recent Annual Report, and from a meeting between the Coalition and PAiH’s director and two other workers. For more information about PAiH, visit www.paih.org