It's not clear who the "like anyone else" comparison would be -- it is easy to imagine that the specifics of seeking asylum at a foreign embassy are very different than seeking asylum in the country itself.
I would assume the average government gives asylum seekers a limited amount of transition aid (in finding housing, language instruction, buying initial food), and some of this may be provided by NGOs. Any costs incurred by the government may or may not go through general spending, but I would expect leverages domestic service provision (i.e. subsidized housing exists for non-asylum seekers and is leveraged to provide some for asylum seekers). Then after the first few years of asylum I would expect the government to have basically no further obligations to the person in question.
On the other hand, Assange's living costs are wholly paid by the government of Ecuador and presumably come from the operational budget of the embassy. Also, the embassy itself is going to be physically limited in size. I don't live in London but I did live in an Embassy Row in another OECD country for a few years and many countries had embassies not much bigger than a 3 or 4 bedroom house.
I definitely agree Ecuador, conditional on granting him asylum at all, should extend to Assange the same benefits they do to other long-term asylum grantees who live in their embassies worldwide. But I suspect the set of other people in that situation is cardinality 0. That's not Assange's fault, or Ecuador's or really anyone's. It'd surely be better for everyone involved if they could fly him to territorial Ecuador. But it is what it is.
I would assume the average government gives asylum seekers a limited amount of transition aid (in finding housing, language instruction, buying initial food), and some of this may be provided by NGOs. Any costs incurred by the government may or may not go through general spending, but I would expect leverages domestic service provision (i.e. subsidized housing exists for non-asylum seekers and is leveraged to provide some for asylum seekers). Then after the first few years of asylum I would expect the government to have basically no further obligations to the person in question.
On the other hand, Assange's living costs are wholly paid by the government of Ecuador and presumably come from the operational budget of the embassy. Also, the embassy itself is going to be physically limited in size. I don't live in London but I did live in an Embassy Row in another OECD country for a few years and many countries had embassies not much bigger than a 3 or 4 bedroom house.
I definitely agree Ecuador, conditional on granting him asylum at all, should extend to Assange the same benefits they do to other long-term asylum grantees who live in their embassies worldwide. But I suspect the set of other people in that situation is cardinality 0. That's not Assange's fault, or Ecuador's or really anyone's. It'd surely be better for everyone involved if they could fly him to territorial Ecuador. But it is what it is.