Update: see our new company profile of Mears Group here.. A private "social housing" business, Mears Group, is about to become one of the UK's biggest refugee landlords, winning three ten year asylum accommodation contracts from the Home Office worth a total 1.15 billion. However, staff turnover remains, in Mears words, unsustainable. You do not have any money at all to buy anything extra to what you are given. Mears Group recognise our people as our greatest asset. A private "social housing" business, Mears Group, is about to become one of the UK's biggest refugee landlords, winning three ten year asylum accommodation contracts from the Home Office worth a total 1.15 billion. Without this, the overall worth of the company according to its accounts would drop from 210 million to just 15 million. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account. Financial information on the new contracts has not yet emerged and we do not know if the government bowed to the contractors demands to increase payments and profit levels. In circumstances such as these, their food is provided and they lose their 5.30 daily, which means they often cannot top up their phones to contact lawyers and family, or buy fresh . Mears current Chief Operating Officer, John Taylor, was Chief Executive of Orchard & Shipman when they won the deal working with Serco. That puts Mears value on a par with companies such as lorry firm Eddie Stobart and Hotel Chocolat. Barnsley has been inspecting all the licensed HMOs which Mears has been using. Telephone: 0808 801 0503. Mears also offers a range of management services to other landlords, such as income management (i.e., rent collection), and emergency accommodation. Find out about how to pay your rent, your service charges, what to do if you fall into arrears, and benefits advice. Like those companies, Mears is operating in low margin businesses, facing competition for contracts that, for the most part, do not allow for significant amounts of profit to be made. Mears strategy involves networking across the blurring boundaries of high finance and charitable housing provision. This is effectively the same contract that Mears have now taken over from Serco. Call Now To Reserve: 855-463-2776. . The company employs 12,000 people. But the contract will come up for renewal or retender in 2019. Careers. In short: allegations have flown thick and fast around the Mears Scotland contract, and there is no doubt that the council leader was close to Mears executives. They complain that the contracts with Mears are less favourable than the previous ones with G4S, giving them fewer rights and paying them less, which is one reason Mears have been able to procure only a few new properties in South Yorkshire, with none of the large landlords with many properties signing. Mayfair-based PrimeStone Capital describes itself as working constructively with management and stakeholders to create long term enduring value. Primestone was founded by Franck Falezan, Benot Colas and Jean-Pierre Millet, three financiers previously with The Carlyle Group, a major US venture capital firm. Phone Number: 1-989-433-2929: Mears Group, Inc. industries Building: Headquarters Location: 5051 Westheimer Rd, Houston, Texas . I think the most frightening thing I saw was when there were over a hundred of us in a hotel in November, with families and some children under five, and we were all told to stay in the hotel for a week because on social media someone political had threatened us. According to official sources, between 600 and 900 asylum seekers are being accommodated in hotels at any one time in West Yorkshire. In one hotel we all refused to eat the out-of-date sandwiches they gave us they were very smelly as we opened the packs. NE1 6SQ. They are responsible for your accommodation. A related business line is property acquisition funding. When I got through, they said they thought I was homeless and not in the hotel. In the latest (2017) annual report it describes itself as a national Social Mobility Champion and leading employer of apprentices. Mears says its care workers are paid above minimum wage and that it is central to our strategy that care workers are properly recognised as the skilled workers they are. We are honoured to be a recognised City of Sanctuary; part of a network of towns and cities throughout the country that are proud to be places of safety, and which include people seeking sanctuary fully in the lives of their communities. Click here to contact us if you have any further information about the YourMK partnership or Mears activities in Milton Keynes. 14 Robertson Road, Easton, Bristol, BS5 6JY We take anti-social behaviour very seriously. Alternatively, you can contact our Customer Success team using the Contact Us form on the page. One notable point: from September 2012 until 2016, Sercos Scottish asylum housing was largely sub-contracted to another scandal-hit company, Orchard & Shipman. The roles of national and local governmentSupport for Asylum SeekersSupport after a decision on your asylum claimSupport for Refugees Almost 100 million of the goodwill is for the home care businesses Mears has bought (see the section on home care above for details). The scheme is a 50/50 Joint Venture with the council. These items allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language, or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. At the end of 2019, the accommodation estate was moved from one set of contracts to another. If Mears does, at some stage, have to accept that it overpaid for its home care businesses, its overall worth could be significantly reduced. Our business development department will review your application. He then worked from 2004-15 as a partner and senior advisor at Gleacher Shacklock, a corporate finance consultancy set up by another ex-Dresdner banker. In an investor briefing last year, Mears management said they had decided to turn their focus to bigger deals, particularly from central government: Evolution of business means we are gaining access to opportunities previously out of our reach.. But whereas G4S or Capita have profited from the sell-off of national services, Mears has thrived in the smaller and less visible world of local government privatisation. You may be able to get housing and money to support you and your family while you're waiting to find out if you'll be given asylum. Corporate Watch You will need to contact them to make a claim for asylum support in the first instance, please visit, If you have no other means of support you will be provided with accommodation on a no choice basis by one of UKVIs contracted accommodation providers; in Newcastle the housing provider is, The roles of national and local government, Support after a decision on your asylum claim, Newcastle Support Directory Family Reunion, apply for the benefits you may be entitled to, refer you into education, training and employment opportunities. Social housing specialist Mears Group PLC has been handed contracts worth 1bn from the UK government - a sizeable deal for a company with market capitalisation of less than 400mln. . Back News; Subscribe. Blogs. But these all depend on increased local authority funding, which is hard to predict with any confidence. Set up in 2015, it initially had the relatively straightforward aim of maintaining the councils existing stock. Main picture: a Mears sponsored networking event with senior council and housing association managers. Over the past weeks it has become clear that in South Yorkshire at least, the working of the Mears housing contract is in chaos, putting asylum tenants at daily risk. Mears long-time chairman Bob Holt was recently pushed out by the second biggest shareholder, German investor Shareholder Value Management. It is important that you seek specialist, professional advice from an organisation who can advise you on this such as: Newcastle Law Centre If you are granted refugee status, humanitarian protection or discretionary leave to remain, you can apply for help and financial support through the UK benefits system provided you meet the usual conditions of entitlement. Arlington, Texas. Further complaint has been sent., Asylum housing tenants and others have told me of Barnsley HMOs which Mears had not cleaned for months and where basic hygiene repairs had simply not been done. We have a dedicated team of Local Authority Asylum Seeker Liaison Officers (LAASLOs) who can support you during the asylum process. If you have claimed asylum it is important that you get legal advice and find a solicitor to represent your case as soon as possible, as there are very short deadlines for providing the evidence needed to support your claim for asylum. Nearby Doncaster had begun a similar programme of inspections. The storage may be used for marketing, analytics, and personalization of the site, such as storing your preferences. 2019-12-21 19:00:03 . For welfare rights and money advice please visitWelfare Rights. However, a potential worry for Mears is that its business model depends on winning new maintenance or care contracts every year. Elizabeth Corrado is linked to the booming world of social finance, where investment banking meets philanthropy for a profit, of course. The same applies to the 94 million Mears currently estimates the housing businesses it has bought to be worth (this may have increased significantly with the purchase of Mities housing division in 2018). Councils often require new developments to include a proportion of affordable housing in order to meet planning stipulations, called section 106 agreements. John, 2020 Institute of Race Relations, All Rights Reserved. [1] Is there a company you think we should be looking into? A Mears spokesperson said: "Mears is carrying out a programme of improvements to properties used to accommodate asylum seekers. There is no suggestion that Mears uses the nationwide planning data it manages to gain an unfair advantage in its own developments. The contracts are for ten years., The contracts are part of the way in which the UK Government meets its duty to provide asylum for those seeking international protection in the UK., To deliver the contracts, Mears will draw on their outstanding 30 year track record of providing housing, housing maintenance and care services all across the UK, with a strong footprint in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North East and Yorkshire.. We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services. This model of local public provision was attacked by Conservative and Labour governments from the 1980s on. Despite our size, Mears remains a family company . As a city we are committed to doing what we can to welcome those seeking sanctuary and to help rebuild lives. I am a Mears tenant in Newham, London. 2020, when 7 Scottish MPs cited "no confidence" in the "evaluation" into the impact of Covid-19 on asylum-seekers, with the group walking out of a meeting with government officials, and supporting calls for a full independent inquiry . Starkville, MS. Mears is the premier provider of engineering, design and construction services to the pipeline and utility industries. They said they would do something. Next door I was welcomed by two asylum seeking men on their way out, who encouraged me to look around and take pictures. You will receive notice to leave the accommodation within 21 days. In Yorkshire and the North East, Mears is replacing G4S whose asylum housing has been notorious for squalor, infestations, and scandal when racist vigilantes attacked homes whose doors had been painted an identical red colour. If you have refugee or humanitarian protection you may be able to apply to have your partner and/or child(ren) join you. Merrimack, NH Mears just missed a target for covering its debts in 2018.i But the company said that was mainly due to cash reserves being lower than planned due to being paid for certain activities slightly later than expected. Ruth and the other mothers in a Sheffield Mears mother and toddler asylum house could not get through to Mears to fix their boiler, and faced a cold Christmas day without heating and hot water. The Citizen reports council leader Peter Marland saying: The council received a whistleblowing allegation regarding spending on our housing repairs contract. The Mears Group, which has the Home Office contract to house asylum seekers in Glasgow has been heavily criticised for its decision to move around 400 asylum seekers in Glasgow claiming it was necessary because of problems securing lets during the lockdown, which campaigners say had put the physical and mental health of asylum seekers at risk. The Mears New Homes division was set up in 2014. Mears men told me that there were just now 800 people in the hotels. Mears can offer a suite of services to its partners, from high-end luxury sales to temporary accommodation for the homeless. So far, Mears has overall management responsibility for some 10,000 properties. Mears profit margin has hovered around 3% for the last ten years, just like the big four outsourcers. From its beginnings in pipeline engineering, it has grown to be a leader in corrosion engineering, pipeline integrity management . Click on the heading below to go straight to a section: Mears is one of the UKs biggest maintenance and repairs contractors, working on over 650,000 homes for councils and housing associations. The properties here are to be demolished at a later time. This is the living room. David showed me damaged furniture and a decaying wall cupboard, then a storage area with stained and damaged wall and dirty stair carpets. 866-435-5686. A council investigation found that it had been overcharged by over 500,000 for some 1,000 plastering jobs. Read more about our complaints process, here. These items are used to deliver advertising that is more relevant to you and your interests. Telephone: 0808 801 0503 Urban House is run by the Mears Group as part of a Home Office 10 year 1.15 billion contract to provide asylum housing,where people wait whilst their asylum claims are considered. Mount Pleasant, MI When you join our team, you join a dynamic culture in which career development is encouraged, excellence is rewarded and diversity is valued. Overview. In 2017 it had 345 housing apprentices and 224 care apprentices. North of England Refugee Service (NERS) In January 2019 Mears won its biggest deal yet 1.15 billion worth of asylum housing contracts with the Home Office. Croft House Just 22 million of those were tangible assets. I could not afford the move as I already paid over 7000 of my student loan to Mears as rent. However, the Mears board rejected SVMs attempt to replace him with Andy Hogarth, their preferred pick, saying board appointments should not be imposed on us by a single shareholder.. The National Audit Office (NAO) is currently also investigating the new asylum housing contracts; it is calling for evidence from asylum tenants and anyone involved in the contracts. Contact Information . Long term debt amounted to 51 million in 2017, down from 60 million the year before, all arranged through credit deals with Barclays and HSBC banks. We will push for the Mears contract to be terminated by the Home . Privacy is important to us, so you have the option of disabling certain types of storage that may not be necessary for the basic functioning of the website. He also chairs the investment committee at University College London hospital. Robina Qureshi, PAIH's director, said: "We were getting messages in WhatsApp saying they were . The Unity Centre in Glasgow and SYMAAG in Yorkshire are two groups actively supporting the struggle for decent housing for refugees. In Belfast, the BBC reported in September that a woman asylum seeker reported water leaking into her kitchen. However, there were still instances of appalling care. We have been renting a considerable number of properties to Asylum seekers ever since the home office contracts began. Mears has been awarded contracts for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber. This scenario has been playing out across the UK since September 2019, when three companies - Serco, Clearsprings and the Mears Group - took over the Home Office contract for the provision of asylum housing for asylum seekers awaiting decisions (currently 48,000). 2727 North Loop West Roy Irwin was the Chief Inspector for housing of the Audit Commission, the official body which audited local councils finances until it was scrapped in 2012, with its functions privatised. Through the years, Mears has grown steadily by picking up outsourcing contracts from both councils and housing associations, taking over former DLOs and buying out competing maintenance businesses. Mears buys up properties, does them up and sells them on to a long-term funding partner, perhaps after a few months. Of course, the cost of all this falls on the landlord, not Mears. Contact Us Book Your Ride Today. For background on the previous contracts, and on the asylum housing system overall, see The UK Border Regime chapter 5. Consistent profits have allowed Mears to pay millions out in dividends (the jargon for the cash paid out) to its shareholders. If you have had a positive decision on your asylum claim and have received refugee leave or some other form of leave to remain then you will be required to leave your asylum accommodation. His replacement, Kieran Murphy, is an investment banker rather than a builder. We have a formal complaints process which aims to make sure all formal complaints are recorded, investigated and responded to fairly and in a timely manner. Houston, Texas 77008. I think the job of a local council is to do its best to make sure that all its residents have safe and decent homes to live in., A crisis for asylum housing tenants in Mears housing in South Yorkshire. A new contract to house the 5,000 or so asylum seekers resident in Glasgow with Mears Group has started, but while the new operator has announced it will not carry out "lock change" evictions . However, Mitie Property Management has been one of the worst performing parts of Mities business, which the company has been looking to get rid of for some time (click here to read more in our 2018 Mitie company profile). At the time of writing, the YourMK website has been closed down, with a page announcing that information will be updated in April 2019. While this is a big new income source for Mears, asylum landlords have not always had an easy ride financially. The Home Office is responsible for managing the dispersal, accommodation and support needs of asylum seekers while a decision on the asylum claim is made. Newham council have done little to remedy this & we continue to campaign. This is under the control of the Home Office and the UK Visas and Immigration department who decide who can legally reside in the UK. While profits and payouts remain healthy, Mears financial profile shares many similarities with those of troubled outsourcing firms such as Interserve and Carillion, with potentially few resources to fall back on if contracts are lost or government spending is cut further. In another hotel near a small town, I talked to a church and a Methodist chapel and they were really good, bringing lots of things, toiletries etc. When you receive your notification please get in touch with the LAASLO team who will work with the Refugee Move on Team at Your Homes Newcastle, to help you to: Your housing provider may already have referred you into the LAASLO Team and someone from the team may contact you. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. She was moved to temporary accommodation which Housing4All and their Housing Rights Watch described on Twitter thus: Resident has been given temporary accommodation but there is currently no hot water or lights in the stairwell which is hazardous. Hello Boglarka "The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable - there are currently more than 45,500 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer 5.6m a day. Many of these are Terraquests customers. Flexible and commission-free service at competitive rates. For information on organisations that can help please visitNewcastle Support Directory Family Reunion. Newcastle upon Tyne Cllr Wood said Sheffield, too, was prioritising inspections of asylum houses and concentrating resources there. Unite the Union accused Mears of penny pinching stupidity, saying it should just pay for better dust masks that can cover beards. Mears also sees the overlap between its housing and care businesses as a good selling point looking to capitalise on an ageing population. Meanwhile, allegations of overcharging scams and possible council corruption hang over deals from Brighton and Scotland. Our customer contact centre is open 24/7 and can deal with all your initial enquiries or put you in touch with the right person to help. To increase margins, Mears is trying to break out into wider management roles. It has been like that for at least two months.. Carrollton, TX In September, the Mears Group, an outsourcing company working in housing management and home care,became theUKs biggest refugee landlord, starting three 10-year asylum accommodation contracts from the Home Office worth a total 1.15 billion. Both Serco and G4S complained of losing large sums of money on the previous deals. The finance director, C.M. If that reputation takes a hit, and local authorities and housing associations are more reluctant to use the company, Mears finances would look a lot less secure. Newcastle upon Tyne Chips and crisps from 1.30 in the afternoon to 8 oclock the next day., Poor health care for pregnant women, people not tracked, Terry told me, In the hotel where I spent two months there was a pregnant woman who was visited by the midwife. If you have claimed asylum and are awaiting a decision you can apply for financial support and housing from the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) which is part of the Home Office, a department of UK Government. The other day I think it was the Council who came and they saw the house and the toilet and other problems. Loveland, CO The bread and butter business is winning council and housing association contracts for maintenance and repair work. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. Find out about call charges. According to its latest annual report, Mears works on over 14% over 650,000 of the social homes in the UK. Picture: from Brighton & Hove Housing Coalition. 75 talking about this. But there is no evidence of any illegal wrongdoing. Later, Morgan said he was suing the Labour Group over the issue. Barnsley Council served an enforcement order on the two properties they had licensed as HMOs, demanding action on cleaning and repairs and giving Mears a time limit. You cant just put them in the house and say get on with it like an average council tenant., Hundreds of asylum seekers in hotels in West Yorkshire. Telephone: 0808 801 0503 . Should we have an As part of the contract, Mears will be responsible for the upkeep of thousands of homes occupied by asylum seekers waiting for their claims to be processed. But the plastering scam was not an isolated incident. Home Office statistics show that there were 34,354 new asylum claimants in the UK (main applicants only) in the year ending September 2019, 22 percent more than the previous year and the highest level for three years. 1999-2018 F5 Networks. I and others researching asylum housing warned the Home Office in 2018 in consultation events that separating off the reporting of repairs from the company that actually did them would slow down the response to repair requests and in emergency cases, create dangerous situations for asylum seeking families and so it proved. For general enquiries contact our office at: Serco Limited Enterprise House . As a wholly owned subsidiary of Quanta Services, we can . The mears group have taken over the contract to house asylum seekers in Scotland.