Glasgow is straining under a surge of asylum seekers and people granted refuge who are homeless or living in hotel accommodation, city officials and migrants said, prompting warnings that the council’s services and budget are at breaking point.
Council figures and interviews with migrants and local workers describe more than 4,000 asylum seekers in the city — the highest number per head of population of any UK city — and thousands more people with leave to remain presenting as homeless. Glasgow City Council says it faces a budget shortfall of about £110 million for accommodation and homelessness services over the next two years.
Several migrants described long, precarious journeys and repeated moves between temporary hotels, hostels and streets. Clement Moyo, 46, who said he came from Zimbabwe, showed a GPS ankle tag and told reporters he felt "in limbo" while living homeless in the city centre. Other migrants interviewed said they had travelled through Libya, Italy and across the Channel before reaching the UK; some described family members killed in conflict and others said they had moved north from England because Glasgow had accommodation.
The council and local charities say hotels are increasingly used to house migrants because permanent accommodation is scarce. In August there were 4,361 households in temporary accommodation in Glasgow, about 2,544 of them refugees with leave to remain, and 1,795 people in bed-and-breakfasts and hotels, of whom 1,340 were refugees, according to council data cited by local officials. Some hotels used for migrant accommodation, including the 278-room Britannia Inn, are located near the city centre.
A council source described the recent pattern as a shift from asylum seekers being dispersed around the UK to a concentration of refugees who, after receiving leave to remain, present as homeless in Glasgow. "If you get 50 people in that position every couple of months, it may be manageable, but if you are getting that every other day, it becomes pretty much impossible to manage — and that is the position we’re now in," the source said.
The squeeze on housing coincides with a broader increase in applications to the UK asylum system. Home Office figures show a backlog of around 109,500 asylum applications being processed by the end of March, creating delays and uncertainty for applicants and local authorities.
Glasgow’s population has become more diverse over recent decades. The proportion of residents born outside the UK rose from 5.7% in 2001 to 12.2% in 2011 and to 19.1% in 2022, according to local statistics cited by council officials. Glasgow has been a Home Office dispersal site since 1999 and is governed locally by the Scottish National Party, which calls the city a "sanctuary city." The SNP administration has blamed Westminster for failing to provide sufficient funding to meet the city’s needs.
Local workers and residents described strains in neighbourhoods where temporary migrant accommodation is concentrated. A shop assistant near two hotels used for migrant housing said some customers try to use nearby public services without paying, while staff at a night shelter said rooms are crowded. Reports from residents and shopkeepers also describe open-air drug use and an alley used by people injecting drugs.
Volunteers and former staff at homelessness services said demand has escalated in recent years. One former volunteer said the workload and changing needs of the city’s homeless population, including increasing numbers of asylum seekers and refugees, made work unsustainable.
Public safety concerns have been raised as well. A police inquiry launched in 2011 examined allegations of child sexual exploitation and identified between 100 and 140 potential victims, authorities said at the time; one man associated with those investigations, Javaid Akhond, was jailed in 2014 after being convicted of rape and sexual abuse. Police Scotland later said it had investigated grooming gangs composed of individuals from a variety of backgrounds. Local politicians and community leaders have called for national inquiries and closer scrutiny of historical and recent cases.
Council leaders say they are seeking additional funding and support from the UK Government to ease the pressure on services. The SNP-run council has urged other Scottish local authorities to take a share of asylum and refugee accommodation to lessen the concentration in Glasgow; currently around 92% of refugees with permission to remain in Scotland are living in the city, council figures cited by officials indicate.
Residents interviewed across the city voiced mixed views. Some expressed sympathy for migrants’ hardships and a desire to help, while others said the rapid increase in demand for housing and services had heightened competition for scarce resources and created tensions. Local business owners described incidents they attribute to the concentration of temporary accommodation nearby, while other community members stressed the need for long-term housing and employment solutions.
Local campaigners and migrant support organisations called for clearer pathways into work and permanent housing for people granted asylum. Several migrants said they wished to work but were hindered by a lack of stable addresses, limited internet access while living in hotels, and delays in securing benefits or local housing allocations.
Glasgow’s situation reflects broader challenges in the UK’s asylum and housing systems, including a large national backlog of asylum claims and uneven distribution of refugees and asylum seekers across local authorities. City officials say urgent, co-ordinated action from national governments and additional resources will be required to prevent further deterioration in services and to provide migrants with stable housing and support.
The city council said it continued to provide emergency accommodation and support while seeking long-term solutions, and called for additional funding and policy changes from Westminster to manage the growing numbers seeking asylum and refuge in Glasgow.