Stay Safe: How the System of Shelters Works in Ukraine

Over the months of the quarantine, the call to stay at home was heard so often that it became a neutral message, part of the information background. However, no special mention to stay safe was made. Apparently, the idea was that home is a safe place to be. Of course, often this is not the case: if one suffers from domestic violence; if one is persecuted by the authorities for activism; if parents humiliate their children for their gender identity or sexual orientation; if one's home is in a war zone; if one has no home at all. All these people need shelters, i.e. places where they can temporarily live, get quality care and protection. There are different types of shelters. In this article, we give an outlook on shelters for people in emergency situations, explore who needs them, and how the system of such shelters works in Ukraine.

This article is a part of Ukrainian Urban Forum 2020 which was hosted online due to the quarantine and pandemics and was first published on Mistosite. The forum is organized by the Cedos Think Tank with the support of Heinrich Böll Stiftung Ukraine.

***

“We were cherishing the idea of opening a shelter for a long time, since the 2000s, as we’ve been working with victims of violence for 22 years. There was no special law on domestic violence at that time, but it was clear to us that danger is around the corner. When a woman starts changing her behavior, asks for help, the danger is growing,” says Marta Chumalo, project manager and psychologist at Women’s Perspectives NGO.

“At that time we already had a shelter, although it was supported by the International Organization for Migration,” Marta continues her story. “It was designed for women victims of human trafficking and was located in the countryside. Unfortunately, we lost it due to the crisis. We had no doubt that we needed to have a shelter, we just not always had such an opportunity. There was a time when we helped women rent a room together or even just a bed. There was a senior woman who rented a part of a room with two student girls to hide from her abuser.”

It is normal for us to ask for help because we do not seek help for ourselves, but for women. We’ve never had a situation when we couldn't find a way to support, to rehouse a woman. The logic was that sooner or later we would have a shelter. And so it happened.”

Our shelter is for women with real needs which we do our best to meet. In the beginning, the shelter was opened with help of Kvinna till Kvinna (“Woman to Woman”), a Swedish NGO that supports and promotes women's rights in more than 20 countries affected by conflicts. They helped to equip a shelter, buy beds and all sorts of other things. We still use them and will continue to do so for many upcoming years. The pity is that this space costs us 15,000 UAH a month plus utilities since it is not a municipal space.

Last year we initiated a petition to the Lviv city council which states that we need a shelter since there is none in the city. The petition was reviewed at the City Council meeting, which is quite conservative. So I was prepared they would be against the idea, but they supported the petition and agreed to give us a space. But nothing else happened after the decision was made. Now every time the city council unveils information about the new premises, we apply for them and every time we get a refusal. The premises we apply for stand idle and useless for three or four years... If this trend persists, we will start an open discussion with the Lviv community.”

Marta adds that they have managed to find common ground at the level of the Lviv region. The regional administration is even ready to buy shelter services from their organisation. However, nothing changes at the city level.

“I don't know what we do not to burn out,” she says. “We often burn out and then we have some rest. We're not afraid of that, this is life. I think what saves us is that we work for the sake of our own values. We are feminists, it's all about our values. When we start bickering with each other and having misunderstandings and arguments, this means it’s a good time to slow down and take a break. And that’s what we do. Then we review our steps and, refreshed, get back to fighting for women's rights. Great stories inspire us a lot. For example, when people just drop by and help; when a child who used to be scared tells us how things have changed; when you really see that people need this work and we deliver real results.”

What are the defining features of a shelter?

In this article, we will focus on shelters for people in emergencies, i.e. emergency shelters. This is how they differ from other shelters:

- You can get there quickly and easily in challenging situations. When people face hazards to their health and well-being: severe frost that makes it impossible for homeless people to sleep outdoors, domestic violence, and so on.

- They are free of charge or non-profit. Some of the shelters—for example, areas of compact settlement for IDPs—charge for utilities. Others, in particular, places for homeless people, charge a small fee for overnight stays. However, they are not profit-oriented, therefore their activities are not commercial.

- You can stay there for a fixed, relatively short period of time. Staying in a shelter is a transitional period to keep the person safe from immediate danger. Shelters are necessary to help restore mental and physical health and start looking for money, a new accommodation and work. Staying in a shelter usually lasts from a few days to 3-6 months or, sometimes, longer. Shelters for homeless people are often available for overnight stays only.

- Shelters should provide comprehensive care. Entering a safe space is important, but sometimes it is not enough to establish a foundation for future well-being. Medical, psychological and legal assistance is needed to restore a stable pace of life. Sometimes there are relevant specialists who work at shelters or there is a way to bring a person in need to a place where s/he can receive specialized care.

There are hardly any shelters in Ukrainian cities which fully correspond to these criteria. However, there are crisis centres, social care houses, registration centres and overnight accommodation centres for the homeless, resocialisation centres, and shelters for women victims of violence. They differ not only by their category but also by their rules for accepting and accommodating people. The work of these institutions is regulated by different authorities that determine the list of documents and the criteria for accepting a person.

An important characteristic of a shelter is the possibility of getting there quickly. One of the meanings of the word ‘shelter’ in English is a place which protects from heavy rain, while a bomb shelter is a place where people take refuge from bomb attacks. A shelter is not only a safe and secure place but also one where you can get easily and freely. Imagine: a heavy rain starts and to hide from it you have to bring several certificates. Even if you try to collect them, at least you'll get wet.

Marta Chumalo explains that their shelter does not have severe restrictions for accepting women, “We trust everyone who comes to us, we talk to them, we work hard, we are co-partners like partners in a relationship. When a woman suffers from abuse, that's a fair reason to accommodate her in a shelter. If we have a space, we accept her for sure. Even if we don't have a space, we try to find a solution. They can stay at our shelter as long as needed. There are women who have been staying here for more than six months, and there is one who’s been here for nine or ten months.”

The only thing that makes it impossible to stay in a shelter is cooperation with the abuser, adds Marta. “For example, once I was talking to a client (this situation is really sad and painful for me), who was abused by her son, who came back from the ATO. He abuses alcohol and demands money from her, she brings him food, visits him, brings him some things. Our shelter often receives some things, some humanitarian aid, and she even brings him some of that. Her maternal feelings are much stronger than her need for security. We discussed this with her and said we could not allow her to continue staying at our shelter because there is no progress. We prepare appeals to the police for her when her son extorts money from her, but she does not submit them. There’s basically no progress right now. This is the first case like this. We respect her decision, although we are very sad about it.”

Who needs shelters?

People in search of a shelter face danger for their life and health. They also do not have financial and material resources or cannot manage them. For example, they have a profitable business left on the occupied territories or they have accommodation they share with the abuser they flee from.

The lack of informal social support networks is another reason to look for a shelter with the help of community, charitable organisations, or government institutions. Family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, even Facebook friends can provide support in an emergency. Sometimes, however, there is no one to ask for a helping hand. The possibility to live with relatives in a crisis, to borrow money from friends, to find legal or psychological help through acquaintances is often taken for granted. However, displaced people do not know anyone in the new location. Refugees do not speak local languages and do not know how local social structures work. Women who suffer from violence may not receive the support of friends and relatives who are afraid of harming their relationship with the abuser.

Most often, people who need shelter are experiencing a crisis in life. Sometimes they are poor and cannot rely on social connections. These people find themselves on the margins of social life, they are excluded from active roles in local market processes and lose the opportunity to influence their situation. This is how a temporary crisis can become permanent.

Women victims of domestic violence

Since the quarantine started, the number of domestic violence cases has increased. According to La Strada Ukraine Women's Rights Center, around 1,500 people reached them between March 12 and April 7, which makes 200-300 people more than before the quarantine.

In January 2019, the Law on Preventing and Combating Domestic Violence came into force. The law defines domestic violence broadly to include all acts of physical, sexual, psychological, and economic violence done by ex- or currently married couple or by partners who live or lived together. For the first time, domestic violence was criminalised in Ukraine.

The new law also stipulates establishing state shelters, which can host people for up to 3 or 6 months and provide them with comprehensive assistance. The decision to accommodate a person in a shelter is made within three days, during which one can stay there. It is possible to enter these shelters without documents. However, one must have a recommendation from municipal authorities, the National Police, the social services centre, or the mobile crisis unit.

There are several problems: shelters and crisis units are few, while the share of funding in city budgets is tiny. Halyna Skipalska, the Executive Director of the Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health, gives the example of Kharkiv in an article on domestic violence. In 2018, the city allocated 800,000 UAH to the shelter, while the city's budget expenditure in 2019 is 138 billion UAH. Another obstacle is the police’s attitude. Sometimes the police do not provide assistance and do not record violent incidents, for example, they do not take children’s complaints seriously. This cuts them off from getting into the shelter.

In big cities, there are crisis centres for women victims of violence. However, women who live in small towns and villages need to get there, and it is not always possible. For example, their money might be controlled by their abuser, or their family lives in poverty. Sometimes they can get outside help. However, for Roma women, for example, poverty and discrimination on ethnic grounds cut off access to shelters even before they address there.

During the quarantine, the petition to ratify the Istanbul Convention gained the required number of signatures. Among the convention requirements is the establishment of easily accessible shelters for victims of violence. The state should provide a minimum of one shelter space per every 10,000 inhabitants for the accommodation of a woman and her child. New centres and crisis rooms for girls are being opened in Ukraine. But their number is not enough. For example, in the Lviv oblast there is a centre for social and psychological care with 15 spaces. There is also a mother and child centre for 10 people. The situation is similar in other regions of Ukraine, particularly in Kyiv.

It is worth noting that one shelter’s space per 10,000 people under the convention means not only providing accommodation but also a corresponding capacity for providing various other types of assistance. According to the Istanbul convention, shelters should help with overcoming trauma, restoring self-esteem, and empowering beneficiaries to become more independent.

All of this sounds encouraging, but so far we only have something vaguely similar, which includes “victim behavioral change programmes,” and not even everywhere at that. For example, a shelter for women victims of domestic violence in Kyiv has a programme “I am a woman,” which includes a psychological correction project called “Revival.” This project is aimed at overcoming victim behavior among women. However, the term ‘victimhood’ itself is outdated. Criminologists in many countries do not use it anymore because it denies the abuser's responsibility and claims that the victim's actions caused the crime.

In addition, existing shelters are not inclusive. They do not accommodate alcohol or drug-addicted women. The law does not mention trans-people and LGBTQI+ who are victims of domestic violence. That means that discriminated groups of people are excluded from the sheltering system and should rely solely on themselves.

The shelter network should be built out and be as diverse as possible. The world practice knows shelters of various kinds and alternatives to shelters: safe houses and networks, emergency accommodation spaces, and confidential accommodation. There are also shelter systems that isolate the abuser and allow the victim of violence to stay at home. The new law on combating domestic violence mentions programmes to eradicate violent behaviour, but these provisions remain largely on paper, since the participation in such programmes must be initiated either by the abusers or by a court order.

At the same time, the abusers themselves can pose a threat to shelters, Marta Chumalo shares her experience. “Sometimes abusers come to our office to stalk their victims. Recently there was an incident. A village head brought in her car a woman with a small child. We met her far away from our shelter because our safety rule says no one is allowed to visit the shelter. They brought many bags with them, and this village head offered to help carry them, but I said we would do it ourselves. I asked the girls from the shelter to come, we brought all her stuff to the shelter and it turned out to be the right decision, because later the abuser visited the village head and figured out where she had taken his wife, to our organization, to the shelter. But since she did not know the exact location of the shelter, she could not disclose it. The man found us on the internet and since it was the quarantine, he started calling us and making all sorts of threats. We have very clear regulations on how to react in such situations and immediately address the police.

During the quarantine, all women who stay in our shelter at the moment lost their jobs. One was selling clothes, another took care of an old man (now his children don’t work, so they don’t need her services). They all lost their jobs and salaries. We usually provide the minimum package—bed sheets, laundry, towels, some essential things, but the food is their own responsibility. When needed we help, of course, but the overall situation is that they function as independent adults. But during the quarantine they all lost their jobs, their living conditions were under question, we had to think about how to provide them with food. Some women contacted us on Facebook during the quarantine offering help to our clients, so I asked them to donate some food for the shelter, to bring it to a certain address, and the girls would come and pick it up. That is, no one is informed about the address because a person can disclose it unintentionally”.

Homeless

One might joke that women victims of violence are “lucky” to have access to shelters. The condition of the homeless is way more difficult.

Homeless people are among the most stigmatised groups. The common idea is that they do not deserve social care at all, since their problems are their own fault. Therefore, they should solve their problems on their own. Not only some “ordinary citizens” think like this, but also officials of the sector. For example, Ruslan Svitly, director of the Social Policy Department of Kyiv City Council, recently said that homeless people “need to feel the need”. However, instead of officials’ interviews, one can look at government policies on homelessness. They speak for themselves.

This handbook contains the poor number of institutions for the homeless in Ukraine. There are slightly over 100 state registration centres for homeless, night shelters, reintegration centres, and social hotels. They are followed by a list of non-governmental charitable organizations and initiatives which provide various social services. State registration centres for homeless are the dominant entity in this modest list—one can have documents re-issued there. However, you cannot stay there, spend a night there, take a shower, or even have a meal.

A predominance of registration centres for homeless does not mean there are valid data on homeless people. According to the Help a Homeless initiative, there are about 20 thousand homeless people in Kyiv, although Kyiv City Council informs about 8 thousand. Incomplete data make the problem less visible. If we use a relatively small number of homeless people as a reference, there is no real need for shelters.

‘Homeless’—the word itself points at the problem the person faces. Public authorities speak more often about ‘reintegration’ and ‘resocialisation’ rather than providing people with a place to stay. In reality, assistance is not provided in any of these two processes. There is only one municipal night shelter in the capital which accommodates the homeless for a night. However, it is not free of charge and is located on the outskirts of the city. Still, it is closer than Kyiv Centre for Re-socialisation which is located 60 kilometres from Kyiv.

The first step should be accessible shelters with facilities and decent living conditions, access to medical, legal, and psychological advice, preferably free of charge. Staying in such a shelter should be only a step towards a permanent home, which should be the responsibility of social housing programmes.

Refugees

Close to Lviv railway station, behind a low fence, there is a house embowered in trees. This is virtually only shelter for refugees in Ukraine. This building houses the Jesuit Refugee Service. Starting from 2014, this organisation hosts internally displaced people and asylum seekers.

Organizations that take care of refugees in Ukraine are typically charitable foundations, human rights projects, religious organizations, and volunteer initiatives. Non-governmental organisations and initiatives which take care of refugees have neither their own shelters nor permanent funding to provide them with accommodation. However, they often act as an institutional shelter and try to find accommodation options and facilitate access to specialists and services.

Temporary Refugee Accommodation Centres are the public institutions that most resemble shelters. What makes them different from shelters is that people can enter them only by presenting documents of an asylum seeker issued by the State Migration Service. However, asylum seekers need accommodation straight away after they arrive in a country.

In Ukraine centres for asylum seekers are available in Odesa, Mukachevo, and Yagotyn. Accommodated people should be provided with clothes, shoes, and personal hygiene products. Also, if necessary, they should be accommodated according to religious, ethnic, and other differences. The centres should offer cooking facilities, laundry, rooms for children’s classes, and religious ceremonies.

Occasionally, human rights organisations or media receive complaints about the poor quality of food and the inappropriate behavior of staff. There are also reports of household conflicts between people who have been accommodated together despite belonging to antagonistic communities.

Not many people who face persecution in their countries of origin seek asylum in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the number of spaces in the centres is insufficient, and most newcomers try to find accommodation in large cities. The centres in Mukachevo and Yagotyn are located in rather depressed areas, far away from income opportunities, which does not encourage refugee integration and building their own life in Ukraine.

As for shelters for other categories of international migrants, the text of the Beijing Declaration, which preceded the Istanbul Convention, includes a recommendation to create a network of services for migrants with drawing attention to their culture and language. Of course, it is hard to find the mere mention of this recommendation. The new Ukrainian law in this area, however, does not distinguish between international migrants and internally displaced people.

Internally displaced people

Over the recent years, the focus on internally displaced people has faded, as has the problem of shelters for IDPs from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. In 2014, areas of compact settlement for IDPs were the institutions most similar to shelters. These were spaces in communal, and more rarely state-owned, property refurnished by local authorities. Later, international organisations funded the construction of modular towns in some regions.

Six years later those areas of compact settlement and modular towns that were not closed down turned into temporary-permanent housing. Living conditions are getting worse there: some of the buildings require major repairs, and in others evictions are possible. The design working life of the modular towns was up several years ago. Joining the Affordable Housing Programme cannot solve IDPs’ problem, because only those who have funds can purchase the apartment with a 50% subsidy.

While there are no new shelters and the old ones are full, residents of frontline towns and villages do not dare to leave them even when they are under fire. According to the International Organisation for Migration, 94% of those IDPs who returned to the occupied territories mention available free accommodation as the reason to come back there.

LGBTQI+ people

The story is short when we speak about shelters for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex persons. There are no such shelters in Ukraine. Before 2018, there was such a shelter founded by Insight NGO, but it was closed due to a lack of funding.

If LGBTQI+ people lose their home and find themselves on the streets, the problems I mentioned in the part on homeless people may be exacerbated by discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.

Shelters do not redress injustice

The coronavirus pandemic made many social problems more visible. Unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and domestic violence have become more widespread and severe during the pandemic. However, they are neither a novelty nor a consequence of coronavirus.

The lack of effective tools for overcoming social disparity and inadequate social programmes make the situation of those in need of shelter intolerable and dangerous. This is precisely when shelters as a system of institutions needed to survive and overcome hardships. It is important that they are created with a focus on people’s needs. It requires quantitative and qualitative research of the situations of those in need. This will help figure out not only the number of spaces needed but also what kind of shelters to design and who they should be designed for.

Marginalised groups often have no chance to get to the shelter because of discrimination, which can also exclude them from the consideration of those who commission research. In the system of shelters—if they are indeed shelters—there is no room for any discrimination. If people in a shelter are discriminated against by other residents, then it is not a shelter. If discrimination is a cause of lack of access to a shelter, then the shelter has lost its whole meaning.

Shelters must be an indispensable means of protection from immediate danger. However, they cannot exist beyond a broad comprehensive system of social care. Otherwise, after leaving a shelter, people will go back to sleeping under the bridge, to their hometown under shellfire, or to a husband who beats and humiliates his wife.

The state should introduce and implement poverty alleviation programmes. If victims of violence have no money to get to a shelter, they are bound to stay with the abuser. If there is only a pitiful disability pension, one has no other way than to go back to the streets. Lack of permanent home—which is a basic need—eliminates any chance of a decent living. No matter how high-quality, useful, and comprehensive the assistance at a shelter is, the lack of a permanent home will eventually bring it to nothing.

“In my ideal world, there would be no violence against women,” adds Marta Chumalo. “Once I was on a visit to a shelter in North Carolina, USA. It was a remote house donated by a philanthropist and situated in an evergreen forest. It includes a children's play area and some separate buildings. The institution is focused on supporting women and their wellness, a woman is at the centre of its every process. At the moment we are trying to build something similar. I visited that house about twenty years ago when I was on internship. Some of its residents told me what was most important to them. One refugee woman told me that her favorite activity was taking care of the flowerpots there. Taking care of the plants and watching them grow had a therapeutic effect on her. That means the shelter had wise leadership that provided women with a variety of opportunities. The whole space contributes to their wellness, including the evergreen forest, carefully decorated house, and opportunities to spend time alone or ask for help if needed. The place feels very safe and everything is conducive to a swift recovery. If particular specialists are needed, they can be found, and they are of high quality. The state helps a lot with such queries. If a doctor with a particular medical specialty is needed or, let's say, a child psychologist, they can find them. If there is a need for a course on economics, they provide them. If someone needs an outfit for a job interview, they provide it. The shelter residents should not worry about where to find anything and how to pay for it. I think that someday we will get there too, step by step”.

A shelter is a starting point for solving this problem, but it must be followed by a just housing policy. Together with the shelter system, it cannot emerge through market mechanisms alone. Those in need seek more than just a safe space; they need an opportunity to move forward.

By Kateryna Babych, Cedos researcher, No Borders project operational manager