We exist to support migrants who have No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF).
We exist to provide support to people who are facing poverty and/or homelessness as a result of their immigration status and the systemic discrimination behind it. Specifically, we assist destitute people with ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ (NRPF).
We are the only organisation in the UK that specifically assists with the complex immigration application needed to gain access to public funds.
Most people we see have young families and are working, but living without any welfare safety net to give protection from crises like redundancy or relationship breakdown - or a global pandemic.
ACHIEVEMENTS
We launched our project as a pilot between June and October 2017. We’ve since supported hundreds of people to make successful applications for recourse to public funds, and taken the government to court.
GET INVOLVED
We have a warm and diverse volunteer community.
Some volunteers come to our casework sessions every week to help with casework, or to cook or provide childcare. Others are involved in other ways, such as research and office work.
If you’d like to be a part of what we do, we welcome you.
WHAT IS ‘NRPF’?
NRPF is a central part of the hostile environment and discriminatory, punitive immigration law and policy in the UK. It denies some of us access to the means to supplement low incomes at a time when basics such as rent, food and energy are unaffordable to so many of us.
Recent estimates say that at least 1.4 million people in the UK have NRPF. It affects people who are members of our communities and who work and pay tax.
Our published research shows:
52% of families with NRPF had been forced to sleep on the floor or a chair
a third had to sleep in a room with people who were not their family
6% of single women surveyed had been street homelessness with their children
most parents could not afford to celebrate children’s birthdays or send them on school trips
over 90% of people affected are women and children from BAME communities
In 2020, over 11,000 people applied to have the NRPF condition removed.
This represents an 350% increase on the amount of applications in 2017/18 (when we started work, and when records began).
However, it still represents less than 1% of the total number of people with NRPF.
Only 80% of these applications will be successful.
