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People taking in Ukrainian refugees fleeing war to receive £350 a month
Local authorities will also receive extra funding for support services
Members of the public offering their homes to Ukrainian refugees will receive a ‘thank you’ payment of £350 a month, the government has announced today.
The Homes for Ukraine scheme, set to be rolled out this week, will allow individuals, charities, community groups and businesses to bring people fleeing the war to safety, even if they have no connections to the UK.
Sponsors will be able to nominate a named Ukrainian individual or family to stay with them in their home, or offer a separate property for them to use rent-free for at least six months.
The scheme is expected to welcome tens of thousands of refugees over the coming months.
Applications will be made online through a website due to launch today, with both sponsors being vetted and refugees having to go through security checks. The sponsor will then get a ‘thank you’ payment of £350 a month.
Local authorities will also receive £10,500 in extra funding per refugee for support services, with more for children of school age, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said.
Read More: British public will be asked to open their homes and take in Ukrainian refugees
The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove was quizzed on the scheme on ITV News yesterday, where he said the UK ‘stands behind Ukraine in their darkest hour’ before urging people to ‘join the national effort’ to help refugees.
He said: “We’ve been working across government to deal with this terrible situation.
“The Home Office moved incredible rapidly to establish additional capacity to process the huge number of refugees in Poland and elsewhere in the European Union.
“The system that we have, both the family system and the new Homes for Ukraine scheme that we’re launching today are uncapped. There’s no limit on the number of people who can come to this country as a result of this scheme”.
This comes after the UK government faced criticism for the response to the crisis in Ukraine, with an estimated 1,000 refugees been granted visas out of the 2.5 million believed to have fled the country.
The British Red Cross has said the quickest way of fixing the problem would be to remove the UK’s requirement for a visa, while the Refugee Council said the government’s announcement ‘does not go anywhere near far enough’.