Living with your sponsor: Homes for Ukraine

Before you arrive

When you speak to your sponsor before you arrive, talk to them about how you would like to spend your first days in your new area. You might want some quiet time to rest, or you might want to see the local area or organise essentials like:

• food
• toiletries
• a bank account
• access to a phone or the internet
• access to benefits or getting a job
• arranging for your children to go to a local school

When you feel more settled, talk to your sponsor about the basic arrangements for living together. You should talk about any agreements you need to make about:

• using shared areas of the house, like the kitchen and dining room
• sharing housework, like cleaning and cooking
• any rules your hosts would like you to follow about things like smoking, drinking alcohol, or noise

Adjusting to life in the UK

Your sponsor will be able to help you adjust to life in the UK. As well as being able to give you a room or rooms, they will also want to make sure that you’re comfortable and have everything you need. They may be able to take you to get these things or tell you where you can buy them from.

Your sponsor will also know a lot about the area you’re staying in and can help you to find places like:

• local schools for your children
• doctors
• dentists
• shops
• churches
• community centres
• council offices

They might not know everything about the services you want, but they should be able to tell you who to get in touch with to find out more.

The local council need to make more checks on your sponsor and the accommodation to make sure that you are kept safe. These checks include Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks and may be made at different stages of your journey to the UK.

Someone from the local council will visit you not long after you arrive at your sponsor’s home. This is to check that you arrived safely and that the accommodation you are living in is suitable and that you are comfortable.

If you have questions about local services that you want to access, you can ask the people from the council when they visit. They might not have the answer but will tell you who can help you.

If you need to leave temporarily

We understand that you may need to spend time away from your accommodation for various reasons. Before you leave, we encourage you to discuss your arrangements and how long you plan to leave for with your sponsor. Where possible you should let your sponsor know when you plan to return before you travel or should update them as soon as you can.

Before you leave your sponsor might also want to discuss how you leave your room or accommodation, for example, they may ask you to leave your belongings tidily and in a way that allows your sponsor to still use the room if they need to. You may also wish to have ach others contact details so that you can stay in touch and keep them updated about when you plan to return.

If you go abroad, you can continue to get Universal Credit for up to one month. You must:

• be eligible for Universal Credit when you’re going abroad
• remain eligible for it while you’re abroad
• tell your work coach that you’re going, and let them know when you return

What to expect from your host

Your sponsor will receive a monthly payment from the UK government as a thank you for hosting. Hosts will receive £350 a month during the first 12 months of your stay. This increases to £500 once you have been in the UK for 12 months in order to help sponsors who are able to continue for hosting longer, or if you need a new host after that point. The thank you payment is available for a maximum of two years after you arrive. If you move to a new sponsor, the host will receive the payment amount according to your total length of stay in the UK.

There can only be on payment per residential address and in England will be administered through your local council. So your host will receive one payment - either £350 or £500 - in total for either an individual or a family group of guests.

Sponsors are not expected to use this money to pay for food, or other support, for you. Your sponsor is not allowed to charge you rent while you are staying with them but they may ask you to make a reasonable contribution towards food and other household expenses during your stay

If you think you are being asked to contribute an unreasonable amount of money, speak to your local council.

Your £200 arrival payment does not need to be paid to your host either. This is to help you get some essentials when you arrive.

Occasionally things do go wrong and if they do, it may be something simple that can be resolved with a conversation with your host. If your host asks you to leave or you decide to leave, you can speak to your local council who will work with you to find alternative accommodation.

If your living arrangements aren’t working out

If your sponsorship ends because you are not getting on with your host or you are worried it is about to end because of this, contact your local council as soon as possible.

There are different ways your local council could help you. For example, they may offer you:

• advice (how to talk to your host, or what options are available to you)
• emergency housing
• to rematch you with a new sponsor

The help they offer depends on how urgent your needs are and if you are homeless.

You may be helped sooner if any of the following apply to your situation:

• you or someone you live with is pregnant
• dependent children live with you
• or you are assessed by the local council as vulnerable, for example because of old age or disability

You can find out how to get help if you’re homeless or about to become homeless.