A Home Office contractor that raked in £28m of profit last year is responsible for trying to cram asylum seekers into tiny hotel rooms without beds, openDemocracy can reveal.

Clearsprings also boasted in its annual accounts of “growth” in demand for its services due to soaring numbers of asylum seekers fleeing “political and economic turmoil”.

More than 70 people, including children, slept on the street in protest on Wednesday after two separate hotels run by Clearsprings in west and east London allegedly told them they would have to share single rooms – some without beds – between four people.

Clearsprings reported profits after costs and tax of £28m in 2022 and proposed paying out £27m in dividends to its shareholders, according to accounts filed on Companies House for the year ending 31 January 2022.

In 2021, the company was awarded contracts worth a total of £996m to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers until 2029.

“Demand for accommodation for asylum seekers has remained high throughout the year,” the firm wrote in its 2022 accounts. “This has been driven by an ever-increasing influx of asylum applicants to the UK due to high levels of political and economic turmoil in many countries. Contingency accommodation including hotels has increased over the year.”

It added: “Turnover per employee in the year was £2,472,033… The increase reflects growth in the number of asylum seekers accommodated under Home Office contracts.”

Clearsprings also manages the controversial asylum accommodation at Napier Barracks in Kent, where evidence of "appalling treatment and conditions" has been found.

A London council has now written to Suella Braverman accusing her of forcing vulnerable families onto the streets by providing “inappropriately sized rooms”.

Adam Hug, the Labour leader of Westminster City Council, told the home secretary: “I am writing to express my deep concern that approximately 40 individual asylum seekers were placed on the streets of Westminster last night (evening of 31 May and early morning of 1 June) – without appropriate accommodation or support available, and with no communication to Westminster as the local authority. As a result, 40 people were left on the street all night.

“Neither the Home Office nor the hotel itself responded to this incident, ultimately leaving it to council officers to manage and support this large group overnight. I would ask that you urgently clarify how this was allowed to happen, why this was acceptable, and why no communication was made with the local authority to alert us.”

West London Resistance Collective, a local community group supporting the asylum seekers, said the Westminster group had been promised they would be accommodated in single rooms. But when they arrived in Pimlico they were given single rooms to share between four people. The group have now spent two nights on the streets waiting for suitable accommodation.

In Whitechapel, a separate group of about 30 asylum seekers, including one family with a child, were also left to sleep on the streets on Wednesday night after they were allegedly told to sleep in rooms without beds or bedding.

Staff managing the hotel refused to let asylum seekers even use its toilet facilities or charge their phones after they protested the poor conditions, according to a charity worker at the scene.

“They arrived around 9pm and they were informed they would have to share a single room among four people,” Abdi Hassan, founder of Coffee Afrik, an outreach charity working in east London, told openDemocracy. “And then it appears that the rooms don’t have the correct facilities like four single beds. So they refused and slept outside overnight, including a child who’s three years old.

“They are not being provided with any support, the private firm managing the hotel has been really cold and not helpful – no water, and no blankets.”

The Metropolitan Police attended the scene yesterday after concerns were raised about the mental health of some of the people sleeping outside. The group later entered the hotel after new arrangements were made for them.

A Tower Hamlets Council spokesperson said: “We want everyone to feel safe, secure and welcome in Tower Hamlets and although the council does not have a statutory duty to support adult asylum seekers, our Resettlement & Migration Team visited the hostel to offer our support.

“All residents have now moved into their new accommodation and we will continue to offer our assistance and assess the needs of the residents to make sure that they are getting the right support.

“We are also continuing to work with Clearsprings who manage the accommodation for the Home Office.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Despite the number of people arriving in the UK reaching record levels, we continue to provide accommodation – at a cost of £6m a day – for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, to meet our legal obligation.

“The accommodation offered to asylum seekers by providers, on a no-choice basis, is of a decent standard and meets all legal and contractual requirements.”

Clearsprings would not comment and referred openDemocracy to the Home Office’s statement.