Joanna Rossiter

How to offer a room to a refugee

  • From Spectator Life
A child waves from the window of a bus at the Medyka border crossing, southeastern Poland, on March 14, 2022 (Getty)

Michael Gove has announced that members of the public will be able to offer rooms and accommodation to named refugees through a government portal – Homes for Ukraine – which was launched on Monday. Gove said that he was confident there would be no shortage of people coming forward, although he gave a somewhat roundabout answer as to whether he himself would be hosting a refugee. The British public, however, appear to be very open to becoming hosts, with one in three saying they would offer a room, according to a poll conducted by The Observer.

When Gove launched the scheme in the House of Commons yesterday, Lisa Nandy was quick to criticise the government’s policy of asking volunteers to name Ukrainians who they wished to host. Many potential volunteers might discount themselves due to not knowing any Ukrainians. But the Chair of the government’s Adoption and Special Guardianship leadership board Krish Kandiah, whose charity website sanctuaryfoundation.org.uk has received 18,000 pledges of accommodation since being set up late last week, says a lack of personal links to Ukraine shouldn’t be a barrier to volunteering. His site hopes to match willing hosts with Ukrainians so that volunteers can then go through the government portal to offer a room. It also helps businesses, communities and churches to sponsor groups of refugees by offering to provide accommodation and other support collectively. ‘Community groups are well placed to help refugees navigate the complexities of living in a new area,’ says Kandiah, ‘from registering them with a GP to linking children up with local schools.’

Once volunteers have been paired with a named refugee, what can they expect? Philip Marsden, who recently hosted a family of three from Afghanistan and is in a senior role at the Bank of England, says that his guests ‘just needed a safe place to sleep, to be together and the knowledge that they could participate or not in meals and talks.’

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