Accommodation mediating information and a new real estate portal for Ukrainian war refugees
More than 3000 accommodation offers from private individuals and companies have accumulated in the Refugee Council’s database. Of these, approximately 900 are offers of private residences (separate apartment or house), the rest of the offers are shared living spaces (apartment or room shared with the owner). So far, we have preferred private residence offers. Of all the offers, we have already mediated 682 (as of April 6) to households from Ukraine.
We are glad to announce that the Social Insurance Board and the developers of Kinnisvara24 portal have launched a real estate portal specifically for Ukrainians, where adding an advertisement is free of charge.
If you are still interested in offering your accommodation to a Ukrainian war refugee, we would be very grateful if you could enter it on the website above.
From April 14, our volunteer consultants and accommodation mediators will also start working with this portal, and we’ll try to make it so that all the information about accommodation opportunities is gathered in one place. This way we avoid duplication and the information is easier to manage and clear to everyone involved. From the new portal, Ukrainians can also by themselves search for a suitable place to live, and local governments and our consultants can mediate offers. This will speed up the mediation of accommodations.
Hundreds of refugees continue to arrive in Estonia daily, and if it takes some time to provide accommodation, there will be a need for it in the future as well.
How we have mediated accommodations offered by you so far:
Our priority is to bring together war refugees and accommodation offering families for the longest possible solutions. We communicate with all accommodation offering Estonian people personally, forwarding to them additional information about people who need accommodation, which creates a basis for compatibility and more permanent accommodation.
When mediating accommodations, one of the most important criteria we base on is the socio-economic coping of those in need, i.e. we mediate free or low-cost accommodation offers in first priority to families with small children, where family members lack the opportunity to start working in the near future.
Dozens of volunteers are involved daily in the process of mediating accommodations, mapping and entering the expectations of the war refugees who turn to us. At the same time, refugees are also offered additional information for living and working outside the major centers, as there is already a shortage of separate accommodations in the latter.
Then we search databases for possible suitable accommodation offers, communicate with the owners and within 5-7 working days try to find a suitable solution for both sides.
In Tallinn, Pärnu and Tartu are already working teams of Refugee Council volunteers, who mediate accommodation offers in governmental accommodation establishments so that refugees can get more permanent accommodation faster. We also shared to local governments all over Estonia the offers in their region so that the social workers there can, if necessary, mediate your accommodation offers.
Many accommodation providers have wondered why their offer has not yet been used. A large number of war refugees who have arrived in Estonia have stayed the first 30 days in temporary accommodation provided by the country. To move on with independent life, it is necessary to get the documents related to work and temporary protection status in order, but this takes time.
War refugees are ordinary people in an unusual situation and they also have their own desires and needs to continue independent life.
For our part, we are very grateful that you have found room in your heart for those in need!