Sponsoring Ukrainian refugees – what happens if sponsors pull out?

A worrying survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found that a quarter of households currently accommodating Ukrainian refugees under the Government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme want to pull out of it after six months, which in most cases means they’ll do so very soon. This could cause enormous extra pressure on local authority homelessness services, which are already struggling to cope.

By early August, almost 108,000 Ukrainians had arrived in the UK of which 76,000 were housed with sponsors. So far, pressures to rehouse from the sponsorship scheme have been minimal: by late July, just 1,335 Ukrainian households had become homeless, and 52% of these were from the Government’s other main scheme, where Ukrainians could join family members already living in the UK.

The ONS survey suggests that these numbers might increase dramatically. According to the details of the survey, which took place in July, the biggest reason for sponsors wanting to pull out after six months is that they only intended this to be the period for which they would help, and similar numbers say they now want their house to themselves. However, over 70% go on to say that they might change their mind if they received more support or more money. Clearly the £350 monthly payment now seems insufficient, given rapidly rising inflation. Eight out of ten sponsors are providing food for their house guests, for example, which wasn’t intended to be part of the deal. Others are clearly concerned about the personal support which some Ukrainians require, given the trauma they have suffered.

A heat map showing where Ukrainians are living under the sponsorship scheme shows that many are in southern England, often in places which already have a shortage of accommodation for homeless households. It is therefore very important that the Government acts quickly to ensure the pressures on local housing are minimised. The main reason for this is to provide stable accommodation for Ukrainians, something which has not been provided for many in other recent refugee cohorts (some 10,500 Afghans have been living for months in single rooms in hotels, for example). A second reason to act is that if significant numbers of Ukrainians are given social housing, ahead of local people, this might affect the popular support which they currently enjoy.

Already the Department of Levelling Up, Homes and Communities (DLUHC) has been writing to sponsors asking them to consider continuing beyond six months, but they should urgently consider raising the monthly allowance to encourage them to do so. DLUHC also needs to ensure that councils can use the flexibility within the scheme to move families one from one sponsor to another, where necessary, and address problems that have arisen in the availability of the necessary data. Everything must be done to ensure that as many new sponsors as possible are brought into the scheme and that current sponsors are encouraged to continue.

To avoid families having to be placed in social housing, fallback arrangements are needed to make it easier to get private rented accommodation. DLUHC is already examining how to do this, and of course this is welcome. But the obstacles Ukrainians face are considerable – difficulty in raising deposits, dependency on benefits or having low-paid jobs and not having a UK passport are all likely to be barriers to getting a private letting. Putting in place guarantee arrangements would help, perhaps by expanding some of the existing schemes. However, time is of the essence, and to gain it the Government’s immediate aim should be to extend sponsorships and allow moves between sponsors beyond six months to allow more robust long-term arrangements to be put in place. Everything possible must be done to ensure that as little extra pressure as possible is put on overstretched social housing provision.

For full details of the schemes to help Ukrainian refugees, please visit the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Housing Rights website.