Any experiences, thoughts, alternatives that the HN community can share?
> Because of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, people urgently need temporary emergency stays. Join Airbnb.org to help.
I think you can do a time limit. i.e. 1 month. Then if it's not working you at least tried.
This will largely depend on your location and host country immigration rules.
Is there someone in particular that you’ve met or know before the war that you would like to help or you are just thinking about helping refugees in general?
First, I'll give some general comments. Then I will illustrate what I mean by my personal experienece.
I am deeply grateful that you mentioned
> for indefinite time really
and
> quite possibly someone dealing with trauma[.]
I would disagree with "for indefinite time really". Instead I'd say "possibly" for an indefinite period of time and also would like to point out the possibility to search for a different place for them to stay. Also you may be clear from the beginning how long you are (mentally) capable of providing shelter. But anything less than two weeks is probably inhumane except for extraordinary situations. If you worry about yourself, you shouldn't offer help. Basic rule: If you feel like: "Yeah, I totally wanna help someone to this or that extend!", do it. If you have any serious doubt, don't.
I would like to add another related possibility: Depending on your capabilities and their situation a refugee might become - or subjectively/objectively be - to some extend dependent on you to take appropriate steps in the direction of becoming self sustaining or independent any time soon. In particular, if they are young, alone and their legal status is not clear. Governments are known to be unfriendly in these cases.
Your experience of providing shelter to a refugee will depend a lot on who you choose to offer your home and to what extend you are capable of providing further assistance. If your not sure you can provide much further assistance, simply don't. Definitely, do not create false hopes. Providing shelter and food is already a lot. Everybody will be grateful if you do just that. You don't need to provide shelter to the most helpless person you can find. Providing shelter to someone who can otherwise help themselves that's equally great.
Due to the war in ukraine and inspired by the determination of my significant other, we decided to provide one of our two rooms as shelter to a refuge fleeing from Ukraine (we live in a big european city). For my significant other it was the first time housing a refugee. For myself it was the second time. So I have two very different experiences to share. The current one is definitely challenging. My significant other and I deliberately accepted to help someone whose legal status in our country is extraordinarily difficult when compared to other refugees of the same war. It simply felt natural to do so.
When the first refugees arrived at the main train station my significant other went there in order to help. (Due to work I was unable to go with her.) She met a young female international student from africa that had a long-term but temporary residence in Ukraine in order to study there. So far EU-regulations ensured that any refugee from ukraine who can not return safely and permanently to their home country could stay. Others would need to leave soon. Her country of birth is a sensible subject with regard to this. From a human perspective return for her is impossible. From a legal perspective deportation is a threat with unknown probability.
So far researching laws and seeking advise was at least a half-time job for both, me and my significant other. Not to speak of twice standing 10 hours together with her and hundreds of other refugees in a queue in order to get some papers signed. I am in my late twenties, and that was physically harder than I expected for somebody with my health and my age. Probably this was partly caused by being surrounded by a crowd of people of which most are desperate, shocked, in fear of their relatives that are still in ukraine (some of those fighting or forced to stay because of their profession as a doctor) and confronted with losses and an uncertain future. That was intense. It goes without saying that one can not help anyone, but nevertheless it was a strange feeling that we had chosen to help just some basically random women. In contrast to the situation my girlfriend was confronted with at the main train station, due to the nature of the papers we were trying to obtain a fair share of the people waiting in the queues had a similarly difficult situation as the young woman we had decided to help.
Within two weeks we managed to organize a place at a university not far from our town such that she can continue her studies (in english) and a room in a student dormitory there. She moved there a couple of days ago. Due to her unclear legal status my significant other and I rushed to get a university involved that might be used as a leverage to get a residence permit for her in case the yet-to-be-decided national laws will not cover her case unambiguously. We hurried since soon hundreds of ukrainian citizens might apply for the same places simply because they want to continue their studies without any further legal necessity to do so. The university we found has a long history of engagement for refugees in situations of crisis. The people working there are engaged to such an extent that for example the secretary of the international office of the university has offered money from her own pocket if it would become necessary. They have personal connections to the foreigners office in that city. To be honest we've been - resp. that young woman was - really lucky to have found them with our help. They seem determined to help her especially with regards to her legal status. I don't know what we'd do if we wouldn't have found this university. And despite this universities help and the help of the student dormitory which lets her live there for free for as long as necessary, that young woman's legal status remains unclear.
That young woman wouldn't have managed any of this on her own. As a reaction to the horrors she experienced during her escape from the war, for roughly a week she did nothing much but sleep. She wouldn't eat if not slightly, but "lovingly", pressured. We talked a little with her about what she had experienced, but there is little to discuss. Just in order to provide some reference, one might argue it isn't that bad when comparing to what has happened in Ukraine since, but what she has experienced is still pretty horrifying, and that's it. We're no therapists or similar professionals that could possibly offer some help to cope with that.
After roughly two weeks she seems almost normal again, which is certainly related to having regained some confidence in a world in which 'good' exists and in which people exist who take care. Every day she regained more and more of her happiness and laughter. Nevertheless, I'll take care she speaks with someone professional sometime soon. I tangentially got to know several people with untreated PTSD or something of that kind, and by some coincidence a friend of mine is involved in treatment of though cases of PTSD in a military hospital. By the way, he started learning ukrainian now (and yeah, that guy is exceptional... I am sure he'll be fluent by the end of the year).
Additionally to the trauma the young woman experienced from the war, she was totally hopeless with regards to her legal status. One might say, additionally to the horrors of her escape, she also experienced (or still experiences) the horror of a destroyed future and the horror of fear of being sent 'home' to a war-thorn country in africa. As many others in her situation she probably would have burned her documents in order to increase the chances to get asylum. For the first time of my life I understand why people are doing this even in cases where their chances to get a legal status are probably not too small to try. Understanding the necessary bureaucratic process is even hard for us who speak the local language natively and are able to understand advise we obtain from volunteers and lawyers. By herself she wouldn't even know whom to trust.
Regarding trust... Even though I am rather confident with what we do, there is still the possibility that our approach of handling her situation might be entirely wrong. What we do, or rather what we basically have "nugded" her to do might very well be something terrible with detrimental outcome. All of us are aware of that including her. Especially, getting her to sign those mentioned documents might have been a mistake we made under a possibly false assumption of time pressure. That definitely closed some doors for her. I just want to mention that living with that is definitely a burden we now carry. At least until she obtains a residential permit, and possibly for the rest of our lives.
On the other hand, well as I said: She probably would have burned her documents. And definitely not attempted to finish her studies at the university. Or maybe, someone else more capable than us might have helped her. Who knows...
Throughout the text I said "young woman" all the time in order to avoid writing "she" all the time. And it's also because she's actually very young (and obviously I wouldn't like to share her name). I know I am not even ten years older, and it's mostly bad judgement to compare others to oneself, but when I was her age, I wasn't able to help myself with much smaller issues. Due to her mostly very adult behavior I tend to forget how young she is. But then again something seemingly odd reminds me again. Its difficult to describe that. I haven't spent so much time together with such a young woman for many many years. Well, since I was that age basically. Well, ... it is exactly now that I notice, one should probably not house a young woman as a single male or without at least equally caring involvement of your significant other (regarding non-hetero males: I don't know). I never thought of that but at least during the first days she might have felt insecure because of my gender. I never thought of that until now. I did even know(!) she feels insecure around men sometimes, I just never thought of myself as a potential threat. Up until now at least. But judging by the friendship-like relation the three of us have developed I guess that certainly ceased to be an issue in a matter of days. Anyways, the point I was trying to make regarding her age: Most people in their thirties, forties and fifties I know would have struggled hard in a situation like her. And at her age? I probably would have burned my documents as well.
She's not living at our place anymore, but that is rather out of the necessity of her to move to the city where the university is located. So basically that fact is rather a lucky coincidence, the result of other people being clearly engaged in helping refugees and the result of a lot of work we put into this ourselves. We nevertheless will continue to support her with the bureaucratic process until she receives the resident permit. (In the hopefully unlikely case she doesn't, we'll take care as well. One way, or the other we'll get her out of that mess. We keep that in mind and have some preliminary plans.) I might need to go visit her tomorrow, it's not clear yet. But that's only roughly an hour by train from here.
And that's it so far... We had deliberately chosen to offer that kind of help and now we basically have tattooed her to our skin. Just to reuse some words which that young women already used to describe our effect on her life after a couple of days when we only had offered a place to sleep and calm down. My significant other and I are definitely exhausted because of that "sprint" to then get that young woman to a university and find a place in the corresponding city. But it feels great. For example I really don't worry about small problems right now.
Also last thing I should mention: Even though we and most of my friends are actually poor ourselves, in a matter of days we were able to collect more than enough money (for now) in order to help that young women. So If any of my friends is reading that, again: Many thanks! (My coworkers didn't receive the invitation to send money yet, in case any of them is reading.) That's like another proof for something I learned some time ago: Most important thing in life is to have friends. People you can depend upon.
Well, now to the other experience of housing a refugee, i.e. the first time, I was housing a refugee. To be honest, I wasn't really housing him. My former roommate was suddenly forced to move out, and so there was me, looking for a roommate. By some coincident I got to know some guy searching for a flat.
He was a couple of years younger than me, eighteen or nineteen years old and just arrived a couple of weeks earlier from a long and dangerous journey from a country were he was at risk to be thrown in jail because of his city of birth, or worse, conscripted to fight his own people in a civil war, which is famous around the world. A civil war in which among other things a sniper bullet already had missed his head only by a couple of inches. Due to the inglorious fame of that war his legal status was much easier. He'd get asylum without any doubt.
I trusted him immediately when I met him for the first time. So I let him move in. Even though he would have paid rent late for at least one or two months. This was due to huge deficiencies in the government. He was open about that when we met and at that time I had enough money to cope with that. Also as I said, I just trusted him entirely from the first day I met him.
Nevertheless, I think I was really stupid back then. I was not aware of how much he might have needed help. To be honest, in retrospect I almost didn't help him at all. To me he was almost just another roommate. I was too occupied with myself back then. I was rewarded anyways: with a roommate that is one of the toughest and most honest people I met in my life. And also one of the best friends I have now. That guy definitely changed my life. That guy is one of my very few role models. So that guy tattooed himself onto my skin as well, without me even noticing.
Edit: Deleted an uneccessary sentence and fixed some typos.
You should get support before and during, including monetary support if you decide to follow through. It will involve checks on you I'd expect to take at a month or more.
> someone dealing with trauma from whatever they are running away from.
Trained social workers should be guiding you and them. You won't be asked to house an African child soldier first up. The time won't be "indefinite"
Just do it... studies show you will gain from it. A life experience.
But if you choose not to there are plenty of volunteer programs helping refugees with the language and integrating into the community.
I would be careful of fly by night Ukraine refugee organisations that might be around at the moment. If you were to go down this path you will need to be more resilient. There are stories of people picking up and housing refugees from train stations, I'm sure most stories are made up by the media, but some seem real. This should not be happening.