By Positive Action in Housing

Positive Action in Housing has warned that racist disinformation is damaging communities and taking away desperately needed homes following the wilful fire-raising at an affordable housing development in Possilpark.

The Stoneyhurst Street tenement was being refurbished by ng homes when it was set on fire on 6th September. False claims had circulated online that the homes were intended exclusively for asylum seekers or so-called ‘illegal migrants’.

Ng homes has confirmed that the properties will be allocated from its existing housing list in accordance with its allocations policy and Scottish housing law. Police Scotland is investigating the fire. No one was injured.

People seeking asylum cannot access mainstream social housing. Once granted refugee status, they may apply for housing, but they join the same queues as other eligible households and are assessed under the same allocation rules according to housing need. They receive no automatic priority and frequently spend long periods homeless or in temporary accommodation.

Positive Action in Housing’s forthcoming 2025–26 annual report records that the charity supported 2,427 households experiencing housing problems or homelessness. The number of refugees and others with recourse to public funds seeking its help rose by 99 per cent, from 619 to 1,234 households.

Robina Qureshi, Chief Executive of Positive Action in Housing, said: “Asylum seekers cannot get social housing. That fact is repeatedly ignored by those spreading disinformation. When someone is granted refugee status, they do not jump a queue. They join the same homelessness and housing queues as everyone else, are assessed according to need and can languish for long periods in temporary accommodation.

“They are at the sharp end of the housing emergency: over-represented among people experiencing homelessness and under-represented in stable housing. Our figures show that the number of refugees and others with recourse to public funds seeking our help almost doubled in one year.

“So who did the fire-raisers hurt? They hurt local families and every homeless household waiting for a secure home. They hurt refugees and other eligible applicants in exactly the same queue. The criminals who set fire to much needed homes and took houses away from the local community were not refugees.

“That building was being restored as affordable housing for all our communities. Those responsible did not defend local people. They damaged the very homes local people urgently need and increased the cost and time required to bring them back.

“You cannot tell whether someone is a refugee, a migrant or a British citizen by looking at them. When somebody sees a Black or brown person and assumes that they are an ‘illegal migrant’, that is racial profiling. It places every person of colour under suspicion, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.

“Nigel Farage and others who claim refugees are taking social housing are exploiting a real emergency they have no serious plan to solve. Scotland’s housing shortage was caused by decades of underinvestment, inadequate housebuilding, rising rents and the loss of social housing. Blaming refugees will not create a single additional home.

“Elon Musk and other powerful technology owners cannot ignore what happens when their social-media amplify racist falsehoods, reward outrage and allow threats to spread. Freedom of expression does not remove responsibility for incitement, intimidation and foreseeable harm.

“Positive Action in Housing has received threats because of our work supporting refugees and challenging racism. We have had to upgrade security to protect our staff, trustees, volunteers and service users. Resources that should be helping people escape homelessness and destitution are instead being diverted to protect a charity from threats.”

Positive Action in Housing is calling for the Stoneyhurst Street development to be restored without loss of funding, stronger action against racist disinformation and an accelerated programme of social housing to reduce homelessness pressures in Glasgow based on housing need.

Positive Action in Housing is a Glasgow-based, Scotland-wide, Black and minority ethnic-led anti-racist housing, homelessness and human rights charity.