ASYLUM seekers now outnumber native homeless people living in temporary accommodation in Scotland’s biggest city.
Glasgow’s council chiefs are spending £4.5million of taxpayers’ cash every month to foot a soaring hotels and guesthouses bill amid a tenfold hike in refugee demand.
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Four men spotted outside asylum seeker accommodation in Glasgow
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Elsewhere activists waving ‘stop the boat’ flags lined the streetsCredit: Tom Farmer
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Counter protesters showed up waving blue and white saltire flagsCredit: Tom Farmer
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Men and women wearing Union Jack clothing shouted at each otherCredit: Tom Farmer
And of the current 1,795 homeless people in such digs, three-quarters are asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, a further 1,204 refugees are in properties run by local authority accommodation partners, such as the Wheatley Group.
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It reflects a tripling in costs between February 2023 and now.
City Tory MSP Annie Wells said: “Glasgow is already in the grip of a housing emergency due to SNP budget cuts — it can’t continue to absorb refugees at this rate without an urgent policy and funding change.
“Glaswegians have had to cope with pothole-ridden roads, filthy streets and crumbling services. They should not have to keep paying more while getting less.”
We told how Glasgow has become the UK’s asylum seeker capital amid a Home Office drive to clear out refugee hotels elsewhere.
The surge is threatening to overwhelm the city, which only has around 2,600 social properties fit for temporary habitation.
There are now 2,544 refugees in taxpayer-funded digs in the city, compared to 849 two years ago.
And food delivery bikes have been spotted near some of them. Elsewhere, tents are on the street.
A council spokesman said: “More than 44 per cent of all homeless presentations are from refugees but the UK Government does not provide the city with any resources to meet their needs.”
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The UK Government said: “We are working to give councils as much notice as possible of newly recognised refugees and have mobilised liaison officers to support asylum seekers in Glasgow.”
The Scottish Government said: “We support the call that the UK Government must provide adequate funding to support refugees.”
Elsewhere, crowds clashed at protests outside a hotel housing asylum seekers.
THE SCOTTISH SUN SAYS….
OUR two governments need to wake up to the mounting immigration crisis in Scotland’s biggest city.
Services in Glasgow are under huge strain due to a massive influx of refugees who have been granted leave to remain.
And that is on top of the thousands of asylum seekers who are in the city and awaiting a decision on whether they can stay in the UK.
Glasgow has become a magnet for refugees amid a Home Office drive to clear out asylum hotels throughout the UK, and due to Scotland’s broader homelessness entitlement.
The city’s council is now paying to house 1,795 homeless people in hotels and guest houses.
Three-quarters of them are refugees.
A further 1,204 refugees are in temporary housing, with the remaining 1,817 places taken by other homeless.
It means the system is beyond capacity.
There is now no space in homeless housing for those in need.
And this plainly risks becoming a source of tensions.
This is not a question of whether migrants should be welcomed or whether we should offer a helping hand to people fleeing trouble.
Scotland — and Glasgow in particular — has been doing this for decades.
It is a question about whether the city has the resources to cope.
And the answer, clearly, is that it does not.
The SNP goes out of its way to embrace immigration, but even the Nats have been warning of the damage to community relations if this situation goes on.
The Home Office down south and the Scottish Government both have a part to play here.
Taxpayers in the city cannot be expected to pay at a time when public services are so stretched already.
More resources are needed if Glasgow is to continue to shoulder the burden.
Both governments need to wake up to that.
Around 600 anti-immigration demonstrators, left, gathered at the former Cladhan Hotel in Falkirk, two weeks after a similar demo.
It was made up of local residents and groups who chanted “Stop the boats” and “Send them home”.
A counter protest, above, of around 300 chanted “Nazi scum off our streets” and “Refugees are welcome”.
Both protests were kept apart on separate sides of the road by police. But a man was seen being led away in handcuffs