He wants us deported

Yuliia Bond

If you agreed with what was said in the Senedd this week, I genuinely want you to read this.

Joe Martin MS, from Reform UK Wales, said foreign nationals living in social housing should have three months to find somewhere to rent privately. If they can’t, they should be deported.

Three months. And then deportation.

Before anyone says, “Oh, it’s just one politician saying something stupid. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?”, have a look at the reaction on Facebook.

Around 14,600 reactions, including 13,000 Likes and 927 Loves. Another 1,400 shares and 1,500 comments. Look at how many people are engaging positively with this message.

This isn’t just about one politician standing up in the Senedd and saying something outrageous. It’s about how many people are apparently happy to applaud this kind of rhetoric. And that is what worries me.

Because we’re not discussing some abstract political theory here. We’re discussing real families, real children, real homes and the possibility of sending people back to countries they fled.

I genuinely wonder how many of those applauding have ever actually tried renting a house in Wales as a foreign national.

Because I have.

I came here from Ukraine with my two children because of the war. We lived with a sponsor for nine months. I found a full-time job with Caerphilly Council. My children started school, made friends and finally had a bit of normal life again.

I wasn’t living in social housing. I wanted to rent privately. I had a salary. I could afford it.

It took me six months to find a house.

Six bloody months.

Immigration status

Do you know what it’s like looking for a house when there are sometimes 30 or 40 other people interested in the same property? Landlords asking for a UK credit history, previous tenancy references, guarantors, proof of income.

And then there’s your immigration status. Ukrainians here have temporary permission to stay. Some landlords are understandably nervous about that when they have dozens of other applicants to choose from.

How am I supposed to have years of UK rental history when I’ve only just arrived here? How am I supposed to compete with 40 applicants when I don’t have half the documents they’re asking for?

And then there were my children. They had already lost their home, their friends, their entire normal life in Ukraine. They were finally settled in school here.

I didn’t want to move them again. I wanted them to have some stability, for God’s sake.

I don’t drive either. Back home, I didn’t need to. Here, that meant I had to find somewhere with decent public transport, where I could get to work and my children could get to school.

So no, I couldn’t just rent absolutely anywhere.

Joe also said that if he moved abroad, he wouldn’t expect the country to provide him with social housing.

Well, Joe, let me tell you something.

In Ukraine before the war, you could often find private accommodation on the same day. If you had the money and the landlord agreed, you could move in. The same day. You didn’t need years of local credit history or a pile of references just to be considered.

The problem isn’t always that people want somebody else to pay their rent. Sometimes nobody will even let them pay it themselves.

I was lucky. I spoke English. I had a good job. I had a sponsor keeping a roof over our heads while I searched.

Now imagine a Ukrainian mother with two children, living legally in social housing. She doesn’t speak much English yet. She has no British rental history. No guarantor. Maybe she’s just started working. Maybe she’s been rejected by twenty landlords already.

And now a politician wants to give her three months.

Three months, and then what? Back to Ukraine? Back to a country where missiles are falling, where entire streets have been destroyed, where some people don’t even have homes left to return to?

Imagine telling your children: “We have to go back to Ukraine. Not because Mummy did anything wrong. Because nobody agreed to rent us a house in time.”

Seriously. What the fuck are we doing?

Housing problems

And before anyone says British people are struggling with housing too, yes, they are. I know. I work with people facing housing problems. I see it.

I think it’s outrageous that young Welsh people can’t afford to live in the communities where they grew up. That working families are struggling to find somewhere affordable. That people are waiting years for social housing.

I want that fixed just as much as you do.

But can somebody please explain the logic here? You know there’s a housing shortage. You know private renting is incredibly competitive. You know people are struggling to find accommodation.

And your solution is to give some of those people three months to succeed in a market you already know is failing them?

Or get deported?

How is that a serious housing policy?

And please don’t tell me migrants just need to work, contribute and pay their own way. I did. I was working for your local council, paying my own bills, raising my children and trying to build a normal life.

I did everything you keep telling migrants they should do. And even that wasn’t enough to get me a rental within three months.

Now take away my English, my job, my sponsor and my support network. How much harder would it have been?

Barriers

I am not saying Wales should give everyone a free house. I am saying you cannot demand people become independent while ignoring the barriers they face when they’re desperately trying to do exactly that.

We need more homes. We need a private rental market people can actually access. We need solutions that work for the families already struggling here.

And yes, Welsh people deserve secure, affordable housing. Absolutely. But so do the human beings you’re talking about sending away.

So, Joe, imagine I’d been living in social housing instead.

Three months have passed. I’ve applied everywhere. Nobody has accepted me. My children are in school. I’m working. We’re finally starting to rebuild our lives after escaping a war.

Which one of us would you explain the deportation to first? Me or my children?

And what exactly would you tell them before I had to take them back to a war-torn country?

That their mother did everything right, but couldn’t find a landlord quickly enough?

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