Written by Elizabeth Piper
HATFIELD, England (Reuters) – When she arrived in England nearly two years ago, Mila Panchenko thought her months-long journey from the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol was over and she could settle down.
But after returning home four times since then, the 55-year-old Ukrainian has been declared homeless and her future is uncertain. She has nowhere to return to. The apartment building where she lived in the Russian-occupied coastal city was bombed and then demolished.
In her room in temporary homeless accommodation run by the youth charity YMCA in Hatfield, a town about 18 miles (29 km) north of London, Panchenko says she feels at the mercy of the British government.
“At any time, they can tell me, 'The war is over, goodbye. Where do I go?' She said.
Panchenko is not alone. Research by the Red Cross showed that Ukrainians are four times more at risk of homelessness than other families in the country. Some of the more than 200,000 Ukrainians now living in the UK fear whether they will be allowed to settle in the long term.
It's a problem felt across Europe, the United States and Canada, which continues to host more than 6 million refugees two years after the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
Opinion polls show there is deep sympathy for Ukrainians, but with no end to the war in sight, governments that offered them short-term aid are now facing a much larger bill than they expected, and are looking to keep spending under control.
In the past few days, Britain halved the time it initially allows new arrivals to stay to 18 months, and closed a scheme that allowed Ukrainians to join family members in Britain, saying it was working to simplify the provision.
It also reduced some refugee support funding for local councils, similar to the cuts Ireland is considering and which several Eastern European countries have already made.
Earlier this month, Poland, which is hosting about 1 million Ukrainian refugees, extended welfare aid to them, but only until June, a departure from an EU directive that members must continue support until March 2025. Poland said They may reduce payments in the future.
Some departments are also sensitive to the wishes of the government in Kiev, which wants Ukrainian refugees to eventually return to help rebuild the country.
While last week it offered an 18-month visa extension for Ukrainian refugees already in the country, the British Home Office said it supports “the government of Ukraine's hope for the eventual return of its citizens.”
No homes
But Panchenko has no home to return to in Mariupol. She wants to live a life in Hatfield, which developed as an outflow from London after World War II.
“First of all, I would like to thank this country,” Panchenko said in her room, where a painting of the Ukrainian capital Kiev that she bought from a charity shop took pride of place.
“We want to be useful here,” she said of Ukrainians like her, whose homes have been destroyed and whose towns are under Russian occupation.
After being transported to Russia during the Siege of Mariupol, she escaped and made her way to England via a short stay in Italy. She was placed with a local family who volunteered to host a Ukrainian refugee in their now-son's bedroom, under a program called Homes for Ukraine.
After pursuing a university course in English and a volunteer position in the area, Panchenko soon sought greater independence. Unable to find an affordable home, after staying with friends for a while, Panchenko was registered as a homeless person.
She was sent to a hostel before being transferred to a shared YMCA home in Hatfield.
In the Welwyn-Hatfield area, 19 Ukrainian families and nine Ukrainian individuals had registered to support homeless people as of 31 January, government data shows. Welwyn Hatfield Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The government makes one-off payments for each Ukrainian arrival, with the aim of helping councils integrate refugees over three years. As of January 1, 2023, payments have been reduced to 5,900 pounds from 10,500 pounds initially. A similar scheme offers Afghans more than £20,000.
Roger Goff, Local Government Association spokesman for Refugees and Migration, said that with local councils offering longer-term support than initially envisaged, pressures from multiple asylum schemes and housing shortages are pushing more Ukrainians to register as homeless.
“Council funding arrangements to support expatriates need urgent review,” Gove told Reuters.
In response to a request for comment, a government official said it had allocated an additional £109 million this year to help prevent Ukrainian homelessness, adding that the “majority of Ukrainians” did not need such support.
The government will also provide £1.2 billion by 2026 to help councils build or buy housing, including for Ukrainian and Afghan refugees, the UK Housing Department said.
Britain also increased payments to hosts under the Homes in Ukraine program to 500 pounds ($627) a month after 12 months from 350 pounds a month to help with rising living costs, the ministry said.
Former refugee minister Richard Harrington said he came up with the “Homes for Ukraine” program after then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky he could take in “an unspecified number of refugees”.
“We put out a call to arms” for volunteers to host refugees, Harrington said. “And 210,000 people responded.”
After initial enthusiasm, “the number of applicants has now dropped significantly,” a government official said.
In an October study by the UK Office for National Statistics, two-thirds of hosts said the high cost of living was affecting their ability to provide support. Just over half intend to provide housing for 18 months or more.
The outlook is also uncertain in other European countries.
In Germany, the head of a regional government association called for future arrivals from Ukraine to receive benefits given to other asylum seekers rather than more generous unemployment benefits – a demand the government has so far resisted.
After being inundated with applications, Scotland temporarily halted its so-called super-sponsor program in 2022 for Ukrainians, which allowed them to choose the government as a visa sponsor, bypassing the need to be matched with a host in a private home.
A Scottish Government spokesman said Scotland is spending £40m in 2024/25 on a resettlement program in Ukraine, down from £100m in 2023/24, and that Scotland wants to “create clear pathways to resettlement”.
Limbo
On February 17, Britain said it would grant an 18-month extension to those whose initial three-year visas are due to expire next year.
Refugee Volodymyr Holovachov, who fled Ukraine before martial law was declared, said that although welcome, the application for an extension can only be submitted three months before the current visa expires, and so far does not provide a route to settling in Britain.
He said the lack of certainty is a problem for employers and landlords who want assurances about the legal status of refugees.
Holovachov, 31, who works in marketing, said: “It is not clear how we can prove our right to work and our right to rent for the required period in the near future.” “Without them we are at the mercy of landlords and employers.”
For Panchenko, too, the temporary measures have done little to end her fear of expulsion.
The former factory manager and local politician says her life would be different if she had been offered a path to settled status, the ability to pay a pension and the right to live, work or study indefinitely.
“I'm very nervous, constantly,” she said.
“I have nothing to return to. I will take my bag and leave prosperous England where I can be useful, and where shall I go?”
($1 = 0.7977 pounds) ($1 = 0.9347 euros)
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Additional reporting by Conor Humphreys in Dublin, Thomas Escritt in Berlin and Carole Badohal in Warsaw; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)
