The family of four, with two young children, had been given refugee status after fleeing a military coup in their home country.
An Ethiopian refugee family was rescued from eviction, caused by limited English language skills, after activists rallied to protest outside their temporary accommodation in Cardiff last week.
The family of four, with two children aged six and seven, had been given refugee status after fleeing a military coup in their country. They faced eviction after declining an offer for a permanent home in a part of Cardiff where they did not want to move.
The family found it hard to understand the social housing application process.
“We don’t know the language, and we suffered because of this. We just want, for once, to be listened to and understood, not to be treated like we don’t belong to this community. We only want to rebuild a happy life with our kids,” a family member said.
The family speaks Oromo, an Ethiopian language that is divided into several distinct regional dialects.
Activists from ACORN, a grassroots community union, said that Cardiff Council did not take sufficient steps to ensure the family received correct information and advice in the dialect they understood.
“When Cardiff Council offered the family a flat far outside their preferred area, where their children were attending school and close to their support network, they were advised another suitable property could be found if they turned the offer down and provided evidence of their health problems, which they did,” they said.
“This advice was incorrect, and the Council instead interpreted their refusal as grounds to consider them voluntarily homeless and no longer in need of social housing”
On March 25th, ACORN members gathered at the family’s temporary accommodation as council officials and police officers arrived to carry out the eviction.
“All 25 of us were packed into that very hot corridor with very little ventilation for around 5 hours,” an activist said. “We sang songs of choice, including Yma o Hyd, Calon Lan and Solidarity Forever.
“Members frantically called local councillors, MPs and Senedd Members, pleading with them to intervene in the family’s case. Save for a few honourable exceptions, we found most largely uninterested. One councillor told us people get evicted all the time.”
The eviction was eventually called off by the police.
Activists said that the consequences for this family, had the eviction process proceeded, would have been severe. In addition to facing homelessness, the children would likely have been separated from their parents and taken into care.
“It should never have gotten to that point, not least in a self-proclaimed ‘Nation of Sanctuary’ for refugees. We dread to think how much money and resources were wasted trying to kick that family out onto the street,” an activist said.