As government support for sheltering Ukrainian refugees dwindles, finding somewhere to live means taking more risks

Oleksandr Kisil pulls up a WhatsApp conversation with a recent ex-landlord on his phone.

He’s a refugee from Ukraine, 21, and studies film in Ballyfermot College. He has a moustache and a mushroom haircut, like Jack in Titanic.

And he’s warm, chatty and bubbly, small-talks with strangers. His favourite drink at Café Nero on O’Connell Street is strawberry matcha with ice.

He arrived here in July, he said at the café, recently. At first, he lived in a temporary shelter for Ukrainians, offered by the government.

He liked it there, says Kisil, being around so many other Ukrainians was reassuring.

“You know it’s valuable when you move to a new country to feel some supporting of your people and supporting from the government,” he said. 

At the time, Ukrainians could use government accommodation for three months. That window is set to be narrowed to a month. 

“When August started, I started to feel the pressure of time,” said Kisil.

As he cast around for somewhere new to live, he realised most people don’t accept the Accommodation Recognition Payment (ARP) offered tax-free to those hosting Ukrainian refugees, he said. “Ninety percent, unfortunately, doesn’t want it for now.”

The government has lowered its rate from €800 to €600 per month “to mitigate any unintended impact on the private rental sector”, says a press release. 

The largest opposition party, Sinn Féin, opposes the scheme for that reason and because “it's unfair in that it offers to one cohort of people a non-means-tested housing assistance that is not offered to others”, said its spokesperson on migration, Matt Carthy, recently.

Unlike refugees with permanent status granted under domestic asylum law, those living here under the EU’s temporary protection directive –  activated in March 2022 – aren’t eligible for the rental subsidy HAP.

The tax-free payment for hosts is meant to shield them from homelessness as they face the affordable housing crisis that touches most lives here. 

What came after for Kisil was a landlord near his college who rented out rooms in his house to students. The man said he only accepted rent and deposit in cash and refused to give Kisil a contract, framing that as a favour, his WhatsApp messages show. 

“For the rent of 550e, definitely not … I’m helping students by dropping the price from 880e. To 500. You want contract then pay full 800e,” he said in a WhatsApp message in response to Kisil’s request for a contract. 

He evicted him just a few days after he moved in, said Kisil. A WhatsApp conversation on 21 September shows Kisil, who slept in Dublin Airport one night and then in hostels, asking why he had kept the bulk of his deposit and rent.

There’s no response. He didn’t pick up when he called him either, said Kisil, who’s turned to his college and the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) for help.

Kisil’s ex-landlord has not yet responded to queries sent on Friday asking about the eviction, his reasons for refusing bank transfers, and not offering a contract. 

As the government slowly pulls away accommodation support for Ukrainian refugees, people like Kisil have to take on greater risks and potential dangers to find somewhere to live. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said it keeps accommodation policy for Ukrainian refugees under review, “to ensure a continued sustainable, proportionate and equitable approach to accommodation and the integration and independence of people”.

Waiting for a change to follow 

Internal Department of Children documents from earlier this year suggest that officials had voiced worries about lack of a clear accommodation strategy for Ukrainian refugees, this late into Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of their country – which began in February 2022.

“We had hoped by now to have a clearer picture of future accommodation policy for BOTPs,” wrote a department staffer in an email in March, using an acronym referring to Ukrainians’ status as Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection.

The EU’s Temporary Protection Directive for Ukrainians fleeing the war unlocked the European Union for its refugees. That means they can enter an EU country of their choice without facing visa barriers.

That is in sharp contrast with the bloc’s response to wars and atrocities in the Middle East and Africa, whose refugees struggle to meet rigid visa conditions. And, if they survive dangerous journeys, they are demonised for crossing without visas and arriving without immigration papers.

But for those refugees, getting status under domestic asylum law comes with permanency and rights to mainstream housing supports. Ukrainians living here under the Temporary Protection Directive don’t have that. 

The new-ish government formed after the November 2024 election transferred the task of providing accommodation to Ukrainians in Ireland from the Department of Children and Equality to the Department of Justice in May 2025.

The transfer of power might spur change, the staffer from the Department of Children wrote in March.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said that since assuming responsibility, it has “implemented and maintained a sustainable and equitable accommodation policy for new arrivals”.

“Ireland has welcomed 122,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine since 2022 and provided accommodation for over 90,000 people in that time,” they said.

As of June 2025, a little over 80,000 Ukrainians lived in Ireland under the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive, excluding thousands who left or changed their status to something else, according to the CSO.

Risking it

Kisil, the student in Ballyfermot College, is now staying temporarily in a sublet, which he needs to move out of soon, he said. 

He’s posting on Facebook groups searching for a host, where waves of xenophobic comments in response swamp his request.

He says losing his money has been a hard lesson to hold on to. His family in Ukraine had covered the payment as he looks for a job while he studies.

They were disappointed, he said, gazing down.  

Ivan Chycha arrived here last month, a few weeks after the Ukrainian government offered some reprieve from war to men younger than 23, letting them leave the country if they wanted to. 

Though young men aren’t eligible for the draft until the age of 25, anyway.

Chycha’s 22, used to be a warehouse operator, and knows how to drive a forklift, he said, recently, hugging a takeaway cup of coffee in a city centre café.

Like Kisil, he stayed in a centre offered by the government for a bit after he arrived, he said.

Then he posted on Facebook looking for a host. “A lot of nasty comments,” he says. But people are nice to his face, said Chycha. 

He was worried that he would end up in a rural town, away from job opportunities, if he tried to find a host through an official channel, which can be safer because it involves vetting of hosts and the like.

That is through the Irish Red Cross (IRC), which runs a programme matching people with those who have pledged to host Ukrainian refugees in their homes and claim ARP for their hospitality. 

As of September 2025, it has placed nearly 13,780 Ukrainians in pledged accommodations, says its website.

Chycha, who has found a host in Tallaght via Facebook, says he wanted to be near Dublin because he’s bracing for when the government discontinues the ARP scheme, when he needs to make money to cover rent.

“To get a minimum wage job,” he said. He hopes to get his forklift driving licence here, said Chycha. 

As of June 2025, 39,734 Ukrainian refugees were living in host homes, with around 17,100 hosts receiving ARP according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Chycha said he also worried that if he went through the IRC and they found him something in a faraway town and he turned it down, they wouldn’t help him again if he needed it.

“Red Cross was like the last choice,” he said.

Kisel, the young guy in Ballyfermot College, said he’d reached out to the IRC. “But unfortunately there is no places in Dublin or nearby and I need this area because of study.”

A spokesperson for the IRC said it is working hard “to match guests with accommodation that suits their needs, close to public transport links, schools, local services where possible”. 

Against the ticking clock 

Letizaveta Karamushka, chairperson of Ukrainian Action in Ireland – a charity in Rathmines which helps organise and send aid to the trenches in Ukraine – says the bigger picture is that most Ukrainians put themselves in risky situations to find hosts because the IRC is overwhelmed.

“With the amount of requests for living arrangements from people under temporary protection,” she said.

When the government lowered the ARP rate, the Red Cross began getting fewer offers from potential hosts, Karamushka said.

A spokesperson for the IRC said it doesn’t want to comment on the government’s recent accommodation policy revisions for Ukrainian refugees. 

But “accommodation is still very much needed”, they said.

It encourages anyone who can afford to help to visit its website to pledge their property or call its hotline at 1800 753 343, the spokesperson said. 

Karamushka of Ukrainian Action in Ireland says going through fringe routes to find hosts is faster than passing through the IRC.

“Irish Red Cross also need time to do proper check-ups and interviews,” Karamushka said.

Many Ukrainians just can’t afford to wait anymore, she said, as the government pushes them to find somewhere against a faster-ticking clock. 

“Anyone who have lived even a single month in Ireland knows the reality of this country and how unrealistic is the expectation to find any stable living arrangement in 30 days,” she said. 

Go your own way 

The IRC had been working in conjunction with Helping Irish Hosts (HIH) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) via the Pledge Programme on matching refugees with would-be hosts.

Its website still mentions HIH alongside IOM. 

But internal documents show that the IRC and HIH clashed over different visions for the policy of helping Ukrainians find shelter, with the latter advocating for what it called a “more structured and sustainable approach”.

And HIH, a volunteer-run group, officially announced it had concluded its relationship with IRC in April.

During its time aiding efforts to find hosts for Ukrainian refugees, it had helped match nearly 3,065 refugees with Irish hosts, says its impact report. 

It delivered 31 percent of the all Pledge Programme’s matches, attracted 21 percent of all monthly pledges nationwide, and “provided 20,000 hours of direct support to hosts and guests through regular check-in calls, casework, and mediation”, it says. 

The group took root when Angie Gough, a woman in Ranelagh, decided to open her own home to a Ukrainian family, stirred into action by the full-scale Russian state invasion in February 2022.

Soon after, Gough was meeting with government officials, seeking to partner with the IRC to be part of organised efforts to find hosts for Ukrainian refugees. 

In January 2025, the Irish Times reported that HIH had flagged worries about some hosts’ abuse of the ARP scheme, airing out the group’s concerns to the public.

Did the article contribute to the souring of the relationship between IRC and HIH? Gough said “Yes” in a text message. 

The article said HIH had hoped the accommodation pledge model would expand to include all those who hold refugee status and struggle to move out of asylum centres – not just Ukrainians.

Though HAP is available to the former, discrimination from landlords, including based on their asylum-seeking past, can stymie their efforts to move out and start a new chapter.

On 28 February, HIH wrote to the Department of Children and Equality  – then in charge of accommodation policy for Ukrainian refugees – to say it was branching off. 

“It is clear that HIH cannot operate within the consortium in line with our strategic shift away from direct matching towards a more structured and sustainable approach”, says one of its emails, released under the Freedom of Information Act.

We are in the future 

When HIH offered some of its services to the government independently, instead of through the IRC, officials were unwilling to accept it, documents suggest.

An email from a Department of Children official dated 20 March 2025 says that HIH seems to be “ignoring” the reality of moving on from its link-up with the IRC, and offering to meet and touch base with the government. 

They view themselves as best suited to offer advice about top-ups, the email says.

“They see potential for a direct arrangement with the Dept on communicating with hosts. The Dept doesn’t see any such potential,” the email says.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice did not directly respond to a question asking why.

But said that it’s grateful to HIH for its “contribution to Ireland’s response to this humanitarian crisis”, and that it has adjusted its arrangement with IRC to account for HIH’s departure.

It’s unclear how much HIH’s exit has impacted efforts to help Ukrainian refugees and hosts, and mediations between them if trouble brews. 

A spokesperson for the IRC said, "earlier this year, Helping Irish Hosts shared their desire for a strategic shift in the programme, which is their right”. 

But that didn’t align with the agreed vision of the programme, they said. They didn’t elaborate on HIH's proposed vision, nor did Gough of HIH. 

She wasn’t available for an in-depth interview before the deadline. 

The IRC is grateful for all the work HIH has done, said the IRC spokesperson.

Since its departure, “a majority of the guests they supported agreed to transfer over to the Irish Red Cross and we continue to support them, and their hosts”, they said.

In a text message, Gough of HIH, said the “real story” is the uncertainty hanging over the lives of Ukrainian refugees still living in host homes like guests “and no onward pathway”. 

She said the state is still operating in “crisis mode” three years into the war. 

Karamushka of Ukrainian Action in Ireland said life is dark for Ukrainians right now. 

As the Kremlin continues its offensive, some soldiers on the frontlines have to worry about their families in Ireland, too, who end up with holes in their safety nets, she said.

“Need to worry that your family, wife, kids, parents, will be left on the streets of Ireland while you fight in Ukraine is really demoralising.”

In a recent conference, at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, Ilona Havronska, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister for Unity of Ukraine for European Integration, said she hopes EU governments see “every Ukrainian abroad as a contributor, not burden”. 

But also, “day and night we do our work, our homework, to be a Member State”, she said. 

Meanwhile, Kisil, the young guy in Ballyfermot College, is still looking for a place to live in for longer. 

As he navigates the city’s accommodation crisis, with all its twists and dead-ends, he said, one lesson he will carry with him is that community empowers people to see and be seen. 

“I understand now how valuable it is to help each other. How important it is to have a roof over your head, to have community,” he said.