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LONDON (AFP) – Victoria arrived in the UK in March after fleeing war-torn eastern Ukraine with her two sons and their cat and dog.
A month later, the British hosts who sponsored them asked the family to move out, saying they needed a place for an elderly relative.
Victoria, who asked only her first name to be used, said she and her family had been moved to a caravan park in Devon, southwest England.
Her story is extreme but as the war continues, it is a growing problem as the government asks the hosts to commit to only six months.
At least 2,175 Ukrainian families living in England need local authorities to intervene to prevent homelessness, data shows.
“They put us in temporary accommodation in Ilfracombe,” said Victoria, 37, a cook from Sloviansk.
She described it as a cold, damp “caravan” with a kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms but no heat.
“Everything was covered in mold, even the closet. I constantly sprayed it with chlorine solution but it just came back,” she told AFP.
The family were due to leave within six weeks but Victoria said they were told they were not a priority and had no sponsors.
expenses
Victoria said she decided to bring her family to England because her 15-year-old son speaks English and “dreams” of coming here.
But the problem arose when his sponsors gave the family a month’s notice.
Speaking little English, Victoria could not yet find a job and had to ask the local council for help.
His new home was two hours away on public transport, meaning his children had to change schools.
One couple she knows lived in an airport for three days before being moved to a hotel with no cooking facilities, after their sponsors refused to take them.
The UK scheme allows Ukrainians to live, work and study for up to three years with access to state benefits.
More than 146,000 people have fled to the UK under the scheme, which relies on the good will of ordinary people like Amanda Rodriguez Medina.
Medina, 57, has been hosting Natalia Parkhomenko, 31, and her two sons – in addition to the six-month-old minimum – at his home in Basildon, southeast England, since May.
Amanda says they are “half friends, half mother-daughter”. They go to the gym together and share gardening, DIY and cleaning.
“I’m happy to be here. I’m lucky to have a really nice woman,” says Natalia, an accountant from Melitopol in southern Ukraine.
Amanda insists she is “happy to continue hosting Natalia’s family” until they can rent independently.
“At the moment, it’s impossible anyway, because it’s hard for him to get a full-time job because of the kids”.
However, she admits to being “shocked” at the red tape and having to apply for welfare payments and school places.
Natalia’s monthly sponsorship payments of £350 ($422) took the next four months. Meanwhile, the UK plunged into a cost-of-living crisis.
“We live together, we are happy to be together and happy to see what happens in the future,” says Natalia, who hopes to return home one day.
Housing
Stan Benes of Opora, a charity that helps Ukrainians, said renting accommodation was problematic for many because there was not enough accommodation.
Polls of Ukrainians in October and November by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 45 percent had problems with rent.
Of these, 59 percent indicated lack of guarantors or references.
Nadia, a Ukrainian on a one-year research fellowship at Oxford, now has university accommodation for herself and her daughter.
But she struggled with the rental market in one of the UK’s most expensive cities.
“As soon as they knew I was Ukrainian, (renting) agencies didn’t want to deal with me,” she said.
Kateryna, a music teacher and singer from Dnipro in eastern Ukraine, was offered a teaching job in London after six months leaving her sponsor in Wales.
But even with the guarantee, she could not find a landlord.
“Land owners don’t want to accept us when they know we are refugees,” she added.
Eventually she managed to secure a rented studio flat, that too with mold problems.
But she has no regrets and wants to stay for her son.
pressure
The ONS found that half of Ukrainians expect to stay in the UK for at least three years, but sponsors are falling.
Recently there were 30 sponsorship offers against 1,800 requests, Baynes said.
“People want to come but they are getting discouraged,” he said, urging local authorities to provide more incentives.
The Local Government Association, which represents the council, said that with rising inflation driving up food and energy prices, monthly support payments needed to increase.
© 2022 AFP
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