The charity Reset Communities and Refugees, which has been leading UK community sponsorship programs since 2018, has launched a service to partner donors with refugees, provide education and advocacy. It comes two weeks after the government-sponsored Homes for Ukraine visa application program was opened for refugees with a registered sponsor. About 4,700 visas had been issued and 32,200 applications had been submitted under the program since Thursday, according to the Interior Ministry. The Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) is working to extend the program to those who do not have a partner and has given .000 300,000 in initial funding to Reset, which has developed a pilot service that matches refugees with sponsors. It hopes to expand the service more widely as more than 7,000 refugees were initially registered on its website, along with 8,000 households in the UK, offering places for more than 20,000 refugees. The matching service, which is based on the know-how of a group of 40 people, is offered to sponsors, refugees, decentralized governments, local authorities and organizations that have no other means of mating refugees and sponsors. The program also aims to help local authorities and other groups help refugees with challenges such as language barriers, education, health needs, mourning and work. Kate Brown, CEO of Reset Communities and Refugees, said: “This is a great time for the UK refugee movement. With 200,000 people registered to donate their homes under the Homes for Ukraine program and hundreds of thousands more to support, we are able to help more refugees than ever before. “We need to ensure that there are fair and rigorous systems in place to support refugees and donors as they begin this program.” The matching team will also conduct refugee assessments to understand personal circumstances, including whether they have ties to a place or particular preferences. Once the fight is over, sponsors and refugees will have to apply for a visa at the Home Office, which, together with local authorities, will be responsible for the formal review process, including DBS checks. The launch of the system comes in the context of evidence that UK-based criminals are targeting women and children fleeing war. A letter from 16 refugees and anti-trafficking organizations to the Secretary of Communities, Michael Gove, last week stated that the Homes for Ukraine program was potentially dangerous for refugees who had fled Ukraine. He said the initiative, which allows would-be hosts to partner with Ukrainians seeking refuge in the UK, effectively mimics Tinder’s “swipe left, swipe right” approach to rejecting or choosing a partner and had insufficient safeguards. Initial figures from the letter’s signatories, including the Refugee Action, the Refugee Council and the Helen Bamber Foundation, said the traffickers had already made efforts to target Ukrainian women and children, as well as slum owners. Last weekend, Louise Calvey, head of protection for the charity Refugee Action, said that “issues with the program mean that there is a risk of becoming a Tinder for sex traffickers.” “We already know people with illegal motives who are advertised on social media,” he said. Labor welcomed the program, but said more needed to be done to help refugees in urgent need. Lisa Nandy, the shadow secretary, said: “It is a relief that the government belatedly realized a DIY project where desperate people have to advertise on social media is not good enough. “Valuable time has already been lost. More needs to be done to help refugees in urgent need, including cutting down on unnecessary bureaucracy. “The government can no longer continue to waste the astonishing generosity of the people who have intensified and offered to open their homes.” The DLUHC said: “No visa is issued by the Ministry of the Interior until the checks are completed on the Ukrainian applicant as well as on any adult in the sponsor’s household. Local authorities will then conduct DBS checks on donors, with enhanced DBS with excluded list checks for those housing families with children or vulnerable adults. “Under the Homes for Ukraine program, Ukrainians will be guaranteed free access to NHS health care, including mental health care. They will also be able to work and receive benefits. The government has also ensured that local authorities have the appropriate levels of funding to support new arrivals. “
