Types of accommodation

Poland

Country Report: Types of accommodation Last updated: 22/05/23

Author

Independent

At the end of 2022, Poland had nine reception centres which altogether provided 1,714 places[1] (compared to eight centres at the end of 2021 accommodating 1,615 persons). As of 31 December 2022, 732 (compared to 1,076 in 2021) asylum seekers were residing in the centres. Another 2,963 (compared to 4,795 in 2021) asylum seekers were receiving assistance outside the centres.[2]

At the beginning of 2021, Poland had 10 reception centres, but during the year one of them – for women and children, in Warsaw – was closed, and two – in Biała Podlaska and Czerwony Bór – were given temporarily under the command of the Border Guard (albeit one in Czerwony Bór not fully) and served as detention centres. In mid-2022, the two latter centres were returned under the management of the Office for Foreigners and again served only as reception centres (the centre in Biała Podlaska since 20 June 2023). The centre designed exclusively for women and children was not reopened in 2022. They were accommodated in a separate building in the centre of Podkowa Leśna-Debak.[3]

In 2022, the centres in Podkowa Leśna-Dębak (until 28 August), Kolonia-Horbów (until 19 June) and Biała Podlaska (since 20 June) served as the first reception, where asylum seekers are directed after applying for asylum in order to register and carry out medical examinations. At the end of the year, only the centre in Biała Podlaska served as the first reception, which was problematic for asylum seekers.[4] Kolonia-Horbów centre had a mixed role until 19 June 2023 (first reception and accommodation) but then returned to serving only as an accommodation centre. The remaining six centres were accommodation centres (Białystok, Czerwony Bór, Bezwola, Łuków, Grupa and Linin).[5]

In 2022, there was no problem of overcrowding in these centres.[6] On average, the centres were occupied by 45.1%. As of 31 December 2022, the highest occupancy rate was 70.91% in Kolonia-Horbów and the lowest was in Dębak-Podkowa Leśna – 20.83%.[7]

Since March 2022, the reception centres for asylum seekers have been serving also as a place for accommodation for some temporary protection beneficiaries. However, only 6 temporary protection beneficiaries benefited from this accommodation throughout the year.

Centres are located in different parts of Poland. One is located in a city (Białystok), but most of them are situated in the countryside. Bezwola, Dębak, Grupa and Linin are in the woods. These centres are therefore not easily accessible. In Dębak, until recently, residents had to walk 3 km through the woods to access public transport.[9] However, since 2021 the Office for Foreigners organizes regular transport from the Dębak centre to the railway station in Otrębusy and back to facilitate transport to Warsaw (albeit only twice a day).[10]

Spatial exclusion as a result of the present location of the centres is considered the main problem by some NGOs.[11] Isolation of the centres limits contact with Polish citizens and Polish institutions, including NGOs. It affects the effectiveness of the integration process.[12] In addition, the reception centres are located in areas with a high level of poverty, which hampers the asylum seeker’s access to the labour market.[13] Moreover, the isolation of asylum seekers from society negatively affects their psychological state.[14]

 

 

 

[1] See also ECRE, ‘Seeking Refuge in Poland: A Fact-Finding Report on Access to Asylum and Reception Conditions for Asylum Seekers’, April 2023, available here: https://bit.ly/41hGgdJ, 22.

[2] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 26 January 2022 and 3 February 2023.

[3] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 3 February 2023. See also PAP, ‘Straż Graniczna: zamknęliśmy wszystkie dodatkowe ośrodki strzeżone dla migrantów’, 15 September 2022, available in Polish here: https://bit.ly/3KmRlFe.

[4] ECRE, ‘Seeking Refuge in Poland: A Fact-Finding Report on Access to Asylum and Reception Conditions for Asylum Seekers’, April 2023, available here: https://bit.ly/41hGgdJ, 22-23.

[5] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 3 February 2023.

[6] ECRE, ‘Seeking Refuge in Poland: A Fact-Finding Report on Access to Asylum and Reception Conditions for Asylum Seekers’, April 2023, available here: https://bit.ly/41hGgdJ, 24.

[7] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 3 February 2023.

[8] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 17 January 2023. For more, see Temporary protection Annex: Housing.

[9] For the opinions about the centres’ distant locations see M. Pachocka, K. Pędziwiatr, K. Sobczak-Szelc, J. Szałańska, ‘Reception Policies, Practices and Responses: Poland Country Report’, 2020, RESPOND Working Papers 2020/45, available at: http://bit.ly/3jLCvsV, 61-63.

[10] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 26 January 2022 and 3 February 2023. See also ECRE, ‘Seeking Refuge in Poland: A Fact-Finding Report on Access to Asylum and Reception Conditions for Asylum Seekers’, April 2023, available here: https://bit.ly/41hGgdJ, 23.

[11] See W. Goszczyński, R. Baczyński-Sielaczek, J. Suchomska, J. Stankowska and M. Wróblewski. ‘Lokalne systemy integracji uchodźców – badania’ in Fundacja EMIC and Pracownia Zrównoważonego Rozwoju, Wielogłos. Integracja uchodźców w polskich gminach, 2016, available (in Polish) at: https://bit.ly/31uBLiE, 58. See also M. Baran-Kurasiewicz, ‘Uzyskanie statusu uchodźcy i sytuacja uchodźców w Polsce’, Polityka i Społeczeństwo 3(19)/2021, 17.

[12] Institute of Public Affairs, Analiza przygotowania lokalnych instytucji do przyjęcia uchodźców z programu relokacji i przesiedleń. Raport końcowy z badań fokusowych, 2016, available (in Polish) at: http://bit.ly/2GBfKr4, 12-14; Lukasiewicz, K., ‘Exile to Poverty: Policies and Poverty Among Refugees in Poland’, International Migration Vol. 55 (6) 2017, 65.

[13] Lukasiewicz, K., ‘Exile to Poverty: Policies and Poverty Among Refugees in Poland’, International Migration Vol. 55 (6) 2017, 61.

[14] A. Garbolińska, ‘Rodzaje ośrodków dla osób w procedurze uchodźczej w Polsce’, 2022, available in Polish at: https://bit.ly/3ziK8zR.

Table of contents

  • Statistics
  • Overview of the legal framework
  • Overview of the main changes since the previous report update
  • Asylum Procedure
  • Reception Conditions
  • Detention of Asylum Seekers
  • Content of International Protection
  • ANNEX I – Transposition of the CEAS in national legislation