This isn't for me or my family. TBH I know this sounds judgemental but I don't trust anyone outside of my immediate family with my child. I have had horror stories from colleagues and people I have worked with and its really quite hideous to imagine.
For example, someone I know had a female nursery worker sexually abuse and take explicit pictures of their 2 year old daughter. I've heard of instances where slightly older children of child minders have sexually assaulted younger children etc.
I know that there aren't bad guys lurking around every corner, and at the same time I've seen the horrific damage caused by childhood abuse and will not do anything that may accidentally facilitate this. We can't forget that women and other children do terrible things to kids and I feel that I'd be on edge constantly in my own house.
There are also issues around:
- If you have a mortgage you may have problems with your mortgage lender as you aren't covered to get a mortgage with more than one family in the house
- If you take them in and you get £350 a month, this may technically be sub-letting. There are tax and other issues related to this and most landlords won't tolerate it if they find out.
- If you don't get on with the people (hey, every country has their own fair share of a-holes) how do you get rid? Apparently (I heard on the news) you would have to take them to court for eviction which is hugely stressful.
I know this sounds all doom and gloom but I like to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I don't believe the government has thought this through at all, which isn't shocking given Johnson and Co. They want people to do good things because they genuinely care, without putting in the infrastructure and support for both the hosts and the very vulnerable Ukrainians. I suspect this will end up being a massive scandal when they send vulnerable people into the hands of modern slavers, drug pushers and sexual exploiters. We have seen these things happen time and again (Windrush, Grenfell etc) and it is always in hindsight that you could see a problem a million miles off.
I would personally do this:
Bang up emergency accommodation on pre-existing sites (they did this via the army with COVID19 hubs, they were fire/security safe and appropriate). We aren't talking permanent housing for years, just a temporary space where you could house a large number of people for a year.
Draft in teachers into these hubs so that the children can get education - many of the people coming from Ukraine may have teaching backgrounds. Use them! This would also give them jobs and not over-burden an already screwed educational system.
Have on site medical advice - doesn't need to be 24/7 but if you housed 50 families in a Civic Centre for example, you could easily meet those needs without a huge cost.
You will then assure people coming over and much less likely to be exploited because they will have a stable accommodation, health and educational base. These residences would be secure and contained so we wouldn't see huge increases in exploitative crime.
From what I gather most of these poor people want to go back to Ukraine or closer countries eventually anyway. Calls into various radio stations have been clear that they don't want long term residency here. Lets get them out of that terrible situation and actually provide them with a sanctuary without 1) potentially exploiting them 2) potentially leaving vulnerable people in the UK to take in unsavoury people from Ukraine (there will be some) 3) do this en-masse.
This would also allow people to fill skills gaps and job roles in areas like HGV, agriculture, services, hospitality and other sectors which have taken a kicking due to the pandemic and Brexit.
That is just off the top of my head in five minutes so the detail may need alot of thought! But I think its better than knee-jerk, compassionate actions that in the longer-term may cause more problems and harm to those involved.