Hundreds of people across the UK have offered up homes and spare rooms to house Ukranian refugees fleeing the violence in their country.
Glasgow-based charity Positive Action in Housing say it has been “inundated” with calls from people offering to help or house any people coming to Scotland to escape the Russian invasion.
Since the start of the war last week, 550 hosts have registered with the charity offering places for people to stay – with more than 300 coming forward in the first three days of March.
The offers of accommodation range from empty rooms to cottages and houses, and come from people across a wide spectrum of society.
Those offering to help include lawyers, nurses, teachers, software engineers and retired couples.
People fleeing Ukraine
One who contacted the charity said: “Seeing the issues in Ukraine we really want to do anything we can and this is a small thing. I grew up with my family taking people of need in and I want to carry that on.”
Another added: “There are a lot of terrible things out there happening to a lot of people that don’t deserve it, who are just in the wrong place or have the wrong skin color or tribe or religion.
“We can’t stop these things from happening, but we can offset the terrible with this small kindness.”
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon calls for clarity from Home Office over Ukrainian refugees
One said: “Watching the crisis unfold in Ukraine has made us feel helpless so we would like to open our home to someone.”
UK Government Security minister Damian Hinds has said he wanted to make sure those fleeing the Russian invasion had the “warmest, most supportive welcome possible” in Britain.
He said as well as a “couple of hundred thousand” entering via the extended family programme – which will be open to applications on Friday – others would be eligible via a “community sponsorship route”, along with already established schemes.
“There is absolutely no suggestion of any kind of delay here – people need help now,” he told Sky News.
Asked how many visa applications had been submitted since last Wednesday, Mr Hinds said: “So far a relatively small number – I can’t give you an exact number – but we expect that to grow rapidly.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon urges UK Government to waive all visas for Ukrainians
“So we are stepping up the capacity. We are very soon up to capacity for 6,000, and we will keep that under review and if it needs to increase, it will increase – and that’s just in the immediate region. There is also of course application centres across Europe.”
Robina Qureshi
Those willing to sign up to offer accommodation through Positive Action in Housing are urged to visit its website at www.roomforrefugees.com
Robina Qureshi, CEO of Positive Action in Housing, said: “Since the Ukrainian conflict, we have had 550 new hosts registered on Room for Refugees – over 300 registered in the first 3 days of March 2022 alone.
"The response from people in the UK offering housing has been both humbling and inspiring.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel