THE IRISH RED Cross is to this week begin matching Ukrainian people in Ireland with hosts who have offered to share their homes after an accommodation pledge drive that received “overwhelming” support from the public.
Some 24,708 pledges of accommodation were offered through the Irish Red Cross portal and after an initial focus on the more than 5,000 vacant properties on offer, from this week Ukrainian refugees will begin moving in to share the homes of Irish residents.
The first tranche of accommodation match-ups will be for adults only, as garda vetting is required in any arrangements involving the housing of Ukrainian children. This vetting will also be taking place this week to facilitate the longer-term housing of those who arrived to Ireland with children in shared accommodation.
Around 500 assessments of shared accommodation have already taken place and hundreds more are underway to ensure the arrangements are suitable.
The government has said it is considering offering a €400 monthly payment to hosts to help with the cost of housing Ukrainian refugees.
Speaking to The Journal, Kevin O’Leary, who is Community Sponsorship Lead for the Irish Red Cross, said the charity is also conscious that more practical supports are needed to help ensure accommodation arrangements are viable in the longer-term.
He said some community and voluntary groups had “hit the ground running out of the goodness of their hearts” and organised early placements, before the IRC’s official system was put in place. In these cases the Red Cross is now bringing them into the system retrospectively to support them in any challenges they come across.
“The South Dublin community really mobilised and we’re running a training day for them next Saturday to give people who are hosting some training on managing expectations, cultural competency, bias, a topline understanding of trauma, signposting referrals,” he said.
“It’s a huge thing welcoming people into your home, it’s a monstrous undertaking so it’s also about making sure people are clear about what the boundaries are. They’re not being asked to be a caseworker, they’re not being asked to be the answers to everything and there will be a network of support.
“People have been really welcoming and the last thing we want is for the host to feel vulnerable, we really want to put supports around it and more structure and a line of communication.”
One host, who had volunteered her home before the official system was put in place by the Irish Red Cross, said supports would be welcome to help both parties in the arrangement to settle into their new living situation. Her arrangement was organised through a small voluntary group.
At her Dublin home she is hosting a woman and her adult daughter who fled a small town in Ukraine. The woman said her new Ukrainian housemates were “just dropped off at her door” and there has been no follow-up since.
“”I’m not used to having people in the house, it’s very intrusive,” she said.
The woman said she had underestimated how much the arrangement would change her household set-up.
“I didn’t realise how regimented I was in my own practices and my own company, I’ve been on my own for so many years, other than my son coming in and out and my mother coming to stay with me.”
She said a framework for in-house rules would be helpful, so hosts and their guests can agree on practicalities such as designated shelve in the fridge, the buying and use of staples like milk and butter and which rooms can be used at certain times.
“I have introduced a time-block for the guests in the kitchen for dinner time as I work from home and the kitchen table is my office,” she said. “The other meals can be worked around as they don’t take any more than 20 to 30 minutes. I’m happy to share dinners on some of the days but would prefer some alone time.”
The Irish Red Cross, which has been involved in arranging shared accommodation for refugees from countries like Syria and Afghanistan since 2017, said mechanisms for offering this kind of practical guidance have been developed and will be used when they begin their roll-out of shared accommodation through their system from this week.
Initially the focus will be on housing individual adults or adult relatives as garda vetting is not required for these arrangements. Garda vetting will also take place from this week, with shared accommodation matches for families expected to begin within a fortnight.
O’Leary said online training will be offered to hosts to let them know what to expect and how to manage the practicalities of the new living arrangement.
He said it has taken time to make these kinds of arrangements as the initial work was concentrated on ensuring immediate practical and administrative support was in place for those arriving.
O’Leary said he would advise hosts to set boundaries or lay out ‘house rules’ immediately because “it’s not fair to move somebody into your home without having that conversation”.
This can be done verbally or through “a written record of mutual understanding about what’s expected from you and what’s expected from them”.
“So you may include that you won’t go into their room unless there are extreme circumstances, much like a tenancy agreement,” he explained.
“You may ask that they keep the place clean, people might be particular about social media and privacy so one of the asks might be around posting things online, having visitors over, giving a key to someone else, managing utilities. There are other examples like smoking, pets, certain dietary conditions a person may have.
“All of these things should be addressed straight away, those practical thing are so important from the get-go because small things turn into big things if the communication isn’t there.”
O’Leary said it is “more than acceptable” for hosts to ask for a contribution to utilities as those arriving from Ukraine do have access to financial supports from the State when they arrive.
“People shouldn’t feel guilty for asking for that, there’s been such an outpouring of support, people have been so generous but energy costs and everything else is rising and people coming into the homes do also want to contribute,” he said.
“Beyond that it’s about giving someone a safe secure space and also understanding what they are coming through, meet them on their terms, not what you’d like them to be,” he said.
“People are in fight or flight mode at the moment, they’re exhausted and if they feel like just going into their bedroom and closing the door that’s okay, give them space to breathe and then bit by bit encourage them and make them feel comfortable.
“In a new environment in someone else’s home people may be afraid to ask something or to say no, so try to respect that and not put too much pressure on them. Let them get comfortable.”
Since the start of the call for accommodation pledges, almost 4,000 people who offered either a vacant or shared home have withdrawn the offer while 9,184 potential hosts were uncontactable.
O’Leary said this is “inevitable” with such large initial numbers involved and it is better for people to withdraw if they change their mind.
“It would be worse to move someone in and have stress on the service user or the family who had good intentions and then have it fall through so it’s okay if people withdraw,” he said.
“This is the largest outpouring of support I’ve ever dealt with, it’s mind-boggling, I am so overwhelmed by the sheer goodness that is out there.”
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