The cost of living crisis is impacting people’s willingness to partake in the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics.
21% of current or previous sponsors said the rise in cost-of-living had impacted their ability to provide support “quite a lot” and 9 per cent said it had “very much” harmed their ability to help their guests.
Around 75,000 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in the UK under the government scheme that was launched in March. It has been criticised before for its inefficiency, lack of long-term plans, and lack thereof.
Sponsors receive a £350 per month payment under the scheme to help offset their costs. This number does not change whether you have one refugee or ten.
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Sponsors offered to host refugees and agreed to allow them to stay in their homes for at least six month. This deadline is rapidly approaching, and there is uncertainty about what will happen next.
A sponsor who has been a host for five months now and wished to remain anonymous told Politics.co.uk that the scheme “was a complete let down to both the refugees and the host families”.
He added that he “had so far only received one of the five £350 payments that the government promised” and “can’t afford to house extra bodies in the current economy”. He noted that the idea of the Ukrainians becoming homeless or continuing their trauma is “heart-breaking” for him, but that he must put his own family first.
He hosts a mother with her 6-year-old child. Sveta, the mother, told us that she is “terrified” for what the next year will bring.
Shadow Levelling up, Housing and Communities Secretary Lisa Nandy, wrote on Twitter: “It’d be shameful if Ukrainian families who fled the bombs and bullets of Putin find themselves homeless in the UK because ministers have clocked off and put the Tory leadership race ahead of doing their jobs”.
The figures also found that over a quarter of sponsors who have opened their homes to Ukrainian refugees under the government’s flagship scheme do not want to continue past the six-month period.
The ONS survey also revealed that almost all sponsors felt they had gone far beyond the scheme’s requirements, with 8 out of 10 saying they had provided food, two thirds saying they had helped them find work and 45% providing financial support.
This is the first time that the ONS has published data about sponsors under the Homes for Ukraine program. However, it cautioned that these figures are experimental.
