Last autumn, the council agreed with the Home Office that it would welcome 50 refugees and by December more than 40 refugees are expected to have been rehomed in or around Cambridge.
Support has come from the Cambridge Refugee Resettlement Campaign and others to ensure that most of the refugees settle well into life in the city.
The council has already allocated some of its own accommodation, but given the pressures of meeting the needs of local homeless people, it continues to need offers of suitable self-contained private rented and housing association homes in or near Cambridge to accommodate the refugees.
Cllr Lewis Herbert, Leader of Cambridge City Council said: “The council’s autumn 2015 commitment was to rehome at least 50 Syrian refugees. This was a minimum and we always envisaged a higher number over time.
“We met Home Office Minister Richard Harrington in earlier this year to say that Cambridge could do more if the national scheme extended to single refugees – an issue that has not yet been resolved. We offered to help when such a scheme is announced.
“The government needs to broaden its support schemes to help individual refugees and be crystal clear both about the future for refugee children who have just arrived from Calais, and the future of recently arrived unaccompanied asylum seeking children already in the UK.
“We know that there are hundreds of unaccompanied asylum seeking children currently in the care of the authorities in the East of England and they need answers from the government on their future in the UK too.”
Any private sector housing offered must be self-contained units rather than spare rooms, due to Home Office prohibitions against the use of spare rooms for resettling refugees.
The council inspects properties offered by private sector landlords to ensure they are of an appropriate standard. Where rents are requested they are affordable under the Home Office scheme, which is in line with council rents.
The council has supported fundraising efforts by local groups, most recently an event by Cambridge Rotary Club which raised money for Syrian refugees.
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