Attachments
1. Context
With over 90 per cent of Ukrainian households owning their homes,1 the right to housing is particularly dear to the country’s citizens. Article 47 of the Constitution of Ukraine requires the state housing policy to “create conditions that enable each citizen to build, buy or lease housing.”2 State and local governments may also need to provide free or affordable housing for citizens requiring social protection. Yet for Ukraine’s over 1.4 million registered IDPs who fled the conflict that began in 2014 in Eastern Ukraine, housing remains one of the most pressing challenges3 inhibiting their ability to find a durable solution, particularly for those who have been living with host families or in cramped, modular or collective accommodation for over six years.4
The national homeownership rate for IDPs is around 17 per cent,5 although the rate varies significantly across the country. For instance, in the southern region of Odessa, only three per cent of the 36,554 IDPs6 had purchased their homes by the end of 2019, with the vast majority renting accommodation (77 per cent), living in collective centers (10 per cent) or staying with host families (9 per cent).7 IDPs’ housing requirements are complicated by the fact that many IDPs travel back and forth across the “contact line” between the government-controlled area and the non-government-controlled area in Eastern Ukraine, since pensions and state social payments can only be received in government-controlled areas. Thus, even though IDPs may wish to eventually return to their place of origin, they still need long-term housing solutions in their present location.
The Government of Ukraine’s assistance for IDPs is based on the 2014 law “On ensuring the rights and freedoms of internally displaced persons.” Programme assistance is primarily channelled through the 2017 State Targeted Programme for Recovery and Peacebuilding in the Eastern Regions of Ukraine, which host the highest numbers of IDPs. Following a change in government in 2019, the Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, responsible for coordinating the overall response to internal displacement, was, in 2020, developing a replacement for its 2017 “Strategy for the Integration of Internally Displaced Persons and Implementation of Long-Term Solutions to Internal Displacement for the Period until 2020” and an accompanying Action Plan.8
In addition to compensation for damaged or destroyed housing in the conflict,9 the Government of Ukraine has adapted a spectrum of existing housing schemes to meet IDPs’ specific needs, from temporary housing, social housing for vulnerable groups, and affordable long-term housing solutions. The Ministry for the Development of Communities and Territories leads the government response to housing for IDPs, guided by its Action Plan entailing the “Strategy for the Integration of Internally Displaced Persons and Implementation of Long-Term Solutions to Internal Displacement for the Period until 2020”.10 At the regional state level, “The Regional Program of Support and Integration of Internally Displaced Persons in the Donetsk Region for 2019-2020” includes a broad spectrum of programmes implemented by government authorities at all levels, NGOs, educational institutions and others, and specifically highlights the “creation of appropriate living conditions.”11 Notably, in 2016, the Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs and UNHCR Ukraine launched the national Cities of Solidarity Initiative in Mariupol for cities hosting IDPs,12 followed by subsequent conferences in Kyiv in 2018 and in Kharkiv in 2019 that brought together representatives from 36 cities to identify further improvements for housing assistance for IDPs.13