Westminster pays £100,000 to send immigrants back home

WESTMINSTER council has spent £100,000 sending homeless eastern European immigrants home.

A pilot government scheme using charity Thames Reach has provided food, clothing and a one-way bus and air ticket to thousands of people, mainly Polish, who have no access to benefits in this country.

The organisation also plans to fly in foreign workers to meet its homeless clients and ensure that they have access to welfare services when they return home.

London has more than 2,500 homeless eastern and central European people sleeping on its streets - those who have failed to find work following the mass migration into Britain that followed the entry of Eastern bloc countries into the EU in 2004 and 2007.

The situation has got worse with the economic downturn, which has left increasing numbers in need of help.

Last year Westminster received £100,000 from the Department of Communities and Local Government to run its scheme, with about 600 people returned home since 2005.

Hammersmith & Fulham council has been allocated £50,000 for the 2008/9 and 2009/10 financial years.

Jeremy Swain, chief executive of Thames Reach, said: "They are often better off back home. We will encourage that and help them to reconnect." In September last year, more than 480,000 eastern European citizens were registered as working in Britain, with almost two thirds of them from Poland. However, the Polish embassy estimates there may be as many as 600,000 of its citizens here.

Charities said that large numbers of eastern Europeans had become homeless because of language difficulties, a lack of benefits and limited assistance from their embassies and consulates.

Jenny Edwards, chief executive of Homelessness Link, said: "If people are unlucky, or some are duped, or they become ill, they can end up with nothing and there's very little out there that will help them. We end up with people with no food or shelter."