Non-settled refugees living outside camps
Nature
The non-settled refugee population living outside camps comprises a group of refugees who have already achieved some degree of economic integration, particularly in respect of employment. Some of these refugees suffer from physical or social handicaps, but they are still capable of taking care of their own households and earning a sufficient income to pay a certain rent. For a variety of reasons, however, such as the continued overall shortage of housing in certain areas and the marginal character of refugee employment, most of these refugees, even among the non-handicapped, still live in dwellings which, according to local criteria, are in sub-standard categories. Quite apart from legal reasons (such as the fact that refugees do not possess the citizenship of their country of residence) which may in themselves be an obstacle to getting adequate housing, these refugees are unlikely, for many years, to benefit from the normal improvement of housing conditions on account of what may be called their 'marginality' as a social and economic category.
The refugees in this group may be classified into three categories: households wishing to emigrate, households where a (potential) breadwinner is unemployed, underemployed or requires (re)training; and households which need only adequate accommodation, but do not have the means to rent it.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that new refugees continue to arrive. This factor is particularly important in those areas where comprehensive country clearance programmes are planned to clear the backlog of earlier refugees.
Type
(E) Emanations of other problems