Ukrainian guest …I’m not feeling comfortable

[CookieDoughKid]

I’ve been hosting a Ukrainian mother and 15yo daughter since beginning of May. We get on ok although we live very different lives even before the war. She’s a SAhM and I’m a working mum full time. It’s been difficult for her to adjust because her husband used to do everything, such as banking, booking train tickets, appointments. It’s been a real learning curve having to stand on her own feet here. Fortunately she can speak some English so over time, I have been able to take a step back from supporting her on how to live in England. her dd will be taking GCSE exams next summer term.

My kids and her dd don’t like each other and don’t get on. The mother is a bit work shy in that she is very choosy about jobs being offered to her by the job agency. She does a week here or there. Nothing permanent or full time. She is not claiming UC after it was made apparent she would have to look for work or go back to work full time. Her husband is supporting her financially. I broached the subject of long term accommodation and the challenges of finding rent. I was surprised to learn they have 10000 USD saved, husband has a good job in software in Ukraine. They are prepared to rent but would rather not as they don’t want to ‘waste their money’. I know they’d rather go back home if the war was over.

I had pledged at the start to give them half of the £350 thank you money from Gov to be used as a deposit for their rent when they move on. That’s £150 a month I would give to them for the 12 months commitment. I keep £150. I know I don’t have to do it but I wanted them to feel like they have some longevity here without too much hardship. That was prior to me learning about their savings. With everything going on at home, me working full time, my two teens…I’m finding it all a bit much. The mother is lovely but so talkative and she’s always there. Sand my day is incredibly busy, I travel for work, I have my own children to look after.

what gripes me is that she also doesn’t pay a single thing or offer when I’ve said from the start she needs to sort it herself I’m talking about washing powder and sundries….she does pay her own food. I’m starting to resent the fact that she never offers to pay for dishwasher tablets, stationery paper, toilet roll, cling film, aluminium foil, washing powder, cleaning goods, kitchen napkins etc… It all adds up.

Come October, it will have been 6 months of me hosting. Would I be unreasonable to ask her to plan on moving out …I think I can tolerate them living with me to Jan 2023 (that would be 9 months in total) but she’s mentioned she wants to stay with me till next June so that her dd can sit her exams without interruption.

Should I ask for a household contribution? And what about the £150 a month I pledged? It’s not that I can’t afford it, I can but I feel I’m being taken for a ride.

she mentioned she wanted help in applying for UC housing benefit in the future which does not sit well with me knowing she is supported by her husband, has savings and is choosy with jobs?

fwiw, we both try very hard to get on. She’s helpful sith cleaning and so am I, and we have a good rhythm in sharing the kitchen etc. we don’t argue and we haven’t had any major spats.

it’s just that I am finding it hard to live with someone who is so different in outlook to me and living with us full stop. My dad was a refugee, he held down 3 jobs 7 days a week for a while and that work ethic is very strong in me (I don’t rely on my husband financially and never have but that’s my choice). I know if I was to live with someone not out of choice I would work really hard, and try to move out as soon as possible!

would like your perspective on this. I feel really guilty even thinking about asking her to move out but also, I feel they would have had 8 or 9 months free living so..isn’t that generous in itself?

You actually sound like you have done a hell of a lot for her, but I agree- all this arranging translators, giving her English lessons, applying for school places, this should be being done by specialist refugee support workers, not by the host family on top of already cooking, cleaning and negotiating teens in the household. This is actually a paid job, and you are being asked to do it on top of being a host.

Also, I think you need to pat yourself on the back that you are already helping her an enormous amount. Doing that English practice, which she sounds really keen to do, will help her get a job much much quicker and a better paid one than if she is very poor in English. So, you are doing a great thing, and you do have to keep reminding yourself of that.

That doesn't mean you have to have her in your house for more than works for you at all. Just recognize that that type of intensive one on one language support and helping her admin is a very valuable thing you are doing (for free or a measly £350 a month which must be all eaten up in bills).

The pile on and dehumanisation of this Ukrainian woman might well have implications for how other refugees get treated given this is a public forum with lots of traffic

Equally, the pile on about "suck it up", OP being "unsuitable" or worse, and the endless virtue signalling without offering any real solutions may well act as a warning to other hosts about how they'll be treated if problems arise

Add to that the almost total lack of planning beyond expecting people to "be kind" and do the professional agencies' jobs for them and you've got a recipe for a perfect storm

I hear you OP. A lot in your update is very familiar. I had to find 4 school places for my guests as both kids are moving up in September. And I suspect they may not still be here to take up the new school places but we need to prepare for the possibility that they will be.

I have the opposite problem though - my mum does not talk much, I think she is embarrassed about her English, and it makes communication much harder. She sent me a very heartfelt email a couple of days ago - easier because she uses an online translation service - which really helped to clear the air.

You have been very generous to open up your home but everyone has their limits and you do not need to be embarrassed about that.

Actually I don't think you've "fallen short" at all, CookieDoughKid, because so many of the thiings you've done are what you might reasonably have expected the professionals to support her with - doubly so because we were all assured support would be available

If you've failed at all it might be in being a bit naive to believe such things would actually happen, but since they're often not happening that too may be a red flag for anyone who intended to join what a PP accurately described as an ill-conceived scheme in future

the dishwasher tablets, foil etc. cannot come to more £20/month. I don't think you're being honest with yourself

I have a mother and child staying with me. It has made me interrogate my own feelings in all sorts of ways, which is something I hadn’t expected. I know Ukraine/former Soviet Union and lived in various places off and on - inc renting a room at times so know it is a bit weird whatever the circumstances ie balancing and fitting in with host or speaking the language but not knowing how things work in ordinary ways.
There appears to be a bit of a split between bombed out and highly traumatised and some like my family who are seeing it as an opportunity to live and experience another country, though doing school online permanently is no life for a child so although they came from relatively safe area I get why they did.
I accept that they are the latter and like your family have money and quite high expectations - always shop at Waitrose! I’ve adjusted my attitudes and level of help as I found out a bit more about them. I help with explaining how stuff functions, they buy their own stuff inc washing powder - they obvs don’t like mine and have to subtly or directly enforce boundaries and rules every now and then.
Mum is v high maintainence - hair/nails/makeup etc so we are hugely unmatched in outlook 😂. She also has high ideas re work and salary expectations so I’ve tried to steer her a bit but she was apparently v successful back home. She went for one interview but asked for too high salary so didn’t get it ie above going rate where we live.
She doesn’t want a cleaning/waitressing job but those are easy to come by. She is out dating and aims to find an English husband. I bite my feminist lip but I’ve said it’s six months. My feeling is that she has all the attributes to make a go of it here - good English etc - so she needs to stand on her own two feet come October. My one beef is that she seems v busy dating and leaves DS to his own devices rather too much so I said she had to ask if she was out in evenings. My DS is old enough to be left alone, hers is 11 so I said not acceptable here and brought the subject up when we had our fire safety visit so fireman could reiterate.
I’ll probably host again after Christmas if needed but again for a strict six months.
I have a Polish friend who came over when younger and obvs in different circumstances but they all lived like students ie big shared house until everyone had found their feet. My guests have friends in same town and roundabout so I reckon they could all rent together quite easily especially as our council will act as guarantor and do deposit loans.
I am also fed up with neighbours who haven’t done this also moaning about special treatment for Europeans. I’d happily do this for another female refugee from wherever and if the money was available but not for young men as I’m a single parent.
But OP don’t be too soft hearted - the whole mess is not yours to solve and like everywhere there will be freeloaders and some in desperate circumstances.

I agree with this, I know it’s a bit harsh, and I do understand what you’re feeling, but the £350 is only to cover basic expenses, and YES, that includes dishwasher tablets.

the money won’t cover it, of course it won’t, but it’s a blanket payment and it’s a contribution

what you’re doing is a wonderful thing, but she’s in a situation she would never have wanted and has every right to be reluctant

this isn’t her life. This isn’t what she signed up for when she married her husband or had her dc.

would you feel better if she was destitute? She has $10k… that’s a drop in a bucket and you know it. It won’t buy anything, merely rent and for how long… of course she wants to hang onto it. WHEN she goes home they’re going to need it.

I would have liked to be the kind of person who stepped up and opened my home and heart, but I know it wouldn’t work, even with family guests it’s difficult. Much harder with traumatised people here because of war rather than a holiday.

please know that what you’ve done is amazing, and if you want this to end in October, it’s best to manage expectations now, as it will be less disruptive.

your kids hate this already, they matter too. This is one of the many reasons I wouldn’t have done it, I’ve lived through enough to know that peace and contentment in ones own home is rare and precious and I’d not risk it now for anything.

whatever you decide, Yanbu. Feel free to make the choices and decisions that work for you now.

There appears to be a bit of a split between bombed out and highly traumatised and some like my family who are seeing it as an opportunity to live and experience another country

Careful, Ianadelgrey - the preferred narrative on MN tends to be that they're all utterly traumatised war victims who can hardly be expected to know which way is up, and I doubt you'll be thanked for mentioning that this isn't always so

You're a better woman than I am, OP.

I don't even allow family to stay over!

People get on my tits after a couple of hours.

I agree, which is why I criticise this programme in my posts, not the refugees or the hosts involved. It’s why I emphasised that I think the OP has been generous and needs to prioritise her own comfort in her home. It is a full time job taking care of people with these complex needs, and with the best will in the world people aren’t going to suddenly develop these skills through a desire to “do the right thing”. The government shouldn’t recruit random householders to live full time with and support people with complex needs and a language barrier, anymore than they should recruit healthcare assistants to carry out heart surgery. Would-be hosts were quite reasonable in assuming the government had done their homework and knew that this model would work. They were wrong, the health and social care system barely works for people well used to navigating it, now they are put in the cruel position of having to evict a family in need not knowing if they will have somewhere to go to.
The reason you will find very few constructive suggestions on what should happen next (though I think there have been a few useful pointers on how to approach the situation with the guest) is because it’s an extraordinarily difficult position for everyone to be in. You can’t blame a healthcare assistant for being rubbish at surgery, and you can’t blame a heart patient for being upset they don’t have a proper surgeon operating on them -metaphorically speaking.
None of the above negates the fact that it’s also not the refugees fault, and that all of us should probably be a bit more charitable when interpreting her behaviour in this.
In someways, it’s probably good people see that stepping up like this is thankless if you’re not going in with your eyes wide open and the appropriate skills and resources. It’s much like people judge couples for adopting children from extraordinarily abusive homes who find they also can’t cope with the complex needs that arise and “give them back”. Everyone is well intentioned in those scenarios, but they are not without terrible consequences for all involved.

100% this

im not even letting my sister cross the threshold again after the last visit. Fuck that!

$10,000 is nothing to rebuild your family's life in a new country. Her mistake was telling you about these savings.
If you have had a good job it is hard when moving abroad to adjust mentally to the fact you will get paid not very much and be poor.
Give her notice to move out in October. But give her the money you promised her.

Yes OP, did you really consult your kids on this? Or just think it was a good idea because the topic was in the Zeitgeist at the time?

Does a free Ukrainian/English course exist online?. She clearly wants to learn from what you say - and you can't do much in the little time you have.

Does your council offer meet ups with fellow Ukrainians?

I'm with PPs who have pointed out that few of us would do well if we left our husband (who had done everything for us) not speaking much of the language to which we'd been sent, had been a SAHM etc. Her DH may already have been conscripted or using his IT skills for the army/parliament and who knows what a "safe" part of Ukraine is. 10,000 ?dollars? is going to be eaten up if she returns to find a damaged or non existent house. Do you know how much her DH is sending? it might just be £50 pcm if he can get the money through.

Can you speak to your DC about their feelings?

Can you speak to her DD about some of the problems and ask her to help her mother with online banking etc now school is out?

It is hard for anyone to share a home. Including your refugees. You've already done a great deal for them, do a bit more while easing their way through.

The thing for me is the people we are talking about here.

Its people who have gone out of their way to help when they didn't have to. They've gone above and beyond the average person already.

We are not talking about people who hate refugees nor think they should not come here. We are talking about people who have done everything they possibly can to get someone here and help set them up.

These are 'the good people' not the national front, who are saying hang on a second this person isn't respecting me and my family and its meaning I have no life whatsoever because every spare second is going on someone who isn't lifting a finger. And yet their experiences are being dismissed as not real or not doing enough. And as if they are somehow making things up.

On the other hand you have refugees who are somehow saintly, are infantilised to the point that they are incapable of looking after themselves and shouldnt take responsibility because they've been traumatised so much. They are all married women who are subject to being victims of Ukrainian sexism and therefore are completely incapable. Of course they are all depressed and this means they cant do anything in this country.

Then somehow hosts are being vilified, for taking on such damaged individuals and when they say they are struggling to know how to manage the situation or are struggling to know how to manage all these pressures (on top of their own financial issues and perhaps cash flow issues having paid out for all sorts in order to host in the first place and to make sure guests have the things they need without seeing their own £350) on top of all the things going on in their own lives.

There is no nuance going on. There is no comprehension. There is just this black and white narrative.

If 1 in 2 are suffering from PTSD that, by definition, means 50% are not. It is entirely possible that many have been given very false information about what is available in the uk. I know our council has had to send out information about this to try and manage expectations. Some of the lack of understanding of the uk is wildly different to reality and thats causing massive issues. Is it beyond the realm of possibly that in this untraumatised group there are people who aren't as passively helpless in the way the storytellers want to say to us?

After a few months so of the hosts are actively burning out at this point. They NEED their guests to be doing more. For the hosts' mental health and the best interests of the guests. There has to be more of a strategy of what happens next.

There are houses to rent in my area. One Ukrainian said to me last week 'is there any hope of getting one with no credit history'? Which is fair comment and thats the type of stuff which does need to be addressed. She has a job which seems fairly decent and shes keen to move on, but worried she won't be able to. Ive seen talk that some councils are offering to go guarantor to sort this out, but thats not be announced here, at least so far.

The flip to that is another Ukrainian again who has a full time job and gets UC and has been given cost breakdowns etc. She was shown a property listing as an example and bluntly said it was simply 'too expensive' and she might as well stay where she was for a year. The property was £160 per week and is in a good area and she'd be damn hard pushed to find something cheaper. The going rate is about £180 - 200 around here.

I think the day to day reality of living with people is very different to the concept of helping refugees. In this sense, whilst you might be sympathetic about experiences, you still need guests to have the right mentality that you can't host them indefinitely no matter what theyve been through. Otherwise you are sooner or later going to run into a conflict point no matter how accommodating and well meaning a host is. Add it domestic conflicts where a guest simply isn't doing every day stuff like clearing up after themselves, and it does get blown out of proportion but equally creates a situation which is untenable for a host who is busting a gut to help at all.

Almost to a family, everyone i know hosting, are very busy people to begin with - they tend to be the people who volunteer for other things or are active in the community or have lots of stuff going on generally. Then they are managing the paperwork etc. To add to that someone who isn't pulling weigh around the house or is reluctant to take a job / think about moving on, its going to piss off the family who are doing so much. And actually I do think its a reasonable expectation to be saying that all refugees must take on board the circumstances of their hosts, out of basic respect, even if they've been through a lot.

If they had stayed in Ukraine in the west, then would be receiving a whole lot less sympathy. Ive had ukrainian tell me about how there is a resentment there building up. This isn't a racist thing. This is one about the pressures of the situation and how in supporting someone, they still need to give something themselves to the situation. There isnt the luxury of being able to say 'i dont want to spend my savings' or i dont fancy getting a full time job. (if you have a temporary job, you can certainly get a permanent one).

In terms of financial costs, i actually think the £350 and the ambiguity of how it should be used is somewhat problematic. Some hosts are using it to cover gas / electric / food (especially before UC comes through) whilst others are packing off their guests to the food bank and charging for gas and electric. And see the £350 as a fair rental for a month of their rooms (as the government would otherwise have to spend £200 a week on refugee accommodation).

There are definitely some refugees who don't comprehend the amount of effort hosts are putting in and the amount they have had to give up to be able to host.

Thw complexities and reality on the ground dont fit with the nice narrative of we must do everything for refugees. There are some hosts who HAVE done more than that and are now also paying the price in terms of their own mental health and thats not right at all. Especially when they then get told to 'suck it up' and there aren't exit strategy discussions going on...

Its a lose lose situation. It seems increasingly to me that hosting either works or its a complete hiding to nothing which also earns you a social stigma for saying 'enough this is too much'.

I criticise this programme in my posts, not the refugees or the hosts involved

I know you do, Circleofshells, but then you weren't one of those attacking OP

The only tiny point of your excellent post I'd pick up on is that "Would-be hosts were quite reasonable in assuming the government had done their homework and knew that this model would work"
Call me unreasonable, but from cold hard experience of everything that's gone before, I'm not sure that was a sensible assumption at all

The issue isn't people like OP it's the lack of actual support by the government. Giving people who volunteered their homes money each month without putting any infrastructure of accessible support in place isn't fair. The scheme completely took advantage of those who wanted to help and look who is left to pick up the pieces. Also people are all human, someone can be a refugee but also an arse.

The thing for me is the people we are talking about here
Its people who have gone out of their way to help when they didn't have to. They've gone above and beyond the average person already

Once again spot on, RedToothBrush - as was the rest of your post

It just seems very cruel (though sadly predictable) that "Ooooo you're so wonderful" has turned so quickly into abuse because someone's dared to mention that hosting isn't necessarily all that it's painted

The issue isn't people like OP it's the lack of actual support by the government. Giving people who volunteered their homes money each month without putting any infrastructure of accessible support in place isn't fair. The scheme completely took advantage of those who wanted to help and look who is left to pick up the pieces. Also people are all human, someone can be a refugee but also an arse.

Agree. The government delegated all the practicalities of implementing the scheme and support to local councils, who then tried to fund and source support within the communities on the back of goodwill. Whilst groups like EAL tuition and work preparation groups might have been started in the initial phase of enthusiasm it seems these have dwindled.

THIS.
I knew we would see threads condemning Ukranian refugees living in peoples homes for being difficult, CF, and lots of other things.
Your ordinary person does not really understand the difficulties faced in this situation and how difficult it is to move abroad at short notice, leaving your husband in a war-torn country. Then you have cultural differences. Ukraine is a fairly traditional Catholic country so I am not surprised some women with young children do not expect to work in a paid job. We see this as normal, but some cultures look in horror at paid childcare.
And the public often have unrealistic ideas of asylum seekers. IN general those who make it to Britain have been in highly skilled jobs and it can be a shock that they are expected to work as cleaners and other minimum wage jobs.
And asylum seekers do sometimes have money. If we had to flee Britain we would have savings we could take with us.

It is very much the case that the majority who have come to my area HAVE NOT been actively displaced by the Russians. They are mainly from safer parts of Kyiv or Western Ukraine more generally. They tend to be much more middle class and affluent than an average Ukrainian. They aren't particularly representative of the country.

Thats not to say that this is true of all locally, - There are some who have been through some appalling situations and have lost their homes. The point is the visa system favours those who had means and paperwork to come here and put off those who did not.

There are others who lived close to the border with Poland and had stable good jobs and homes and have only experienced air raids first hand (though i don't underestimate the effect of this).

The line between refugee and economic migrant, at this point, becomes a lot more blurred. And its really difficult to unpick without getting into the debate over 'worthy refugee'. I personally think that anyone from Ukraine should be able to come here but the point remains that this also means you are going to get some who do see this, in a different way to some their own countrymen because of this huge difference in background and experience.

It has been noted that refugees in Poland are a very different grouping to those in the Uk in terms of needs and means.

i don’t necessarily begrudge it, I went off to live and work elsewhere. I’ve visited some really crappy provincial towns and villages from Poland eastwards and into Central Asia and get why back when western men were out looking for it some women were happy to be mail-order brides rather than be farm-workers. But when I signed up for hosting, I knew that there would be a whole load of reasons for comings and goings. My family don’t want to go home - ever. The next family may be desperate to return. A Ukrainian friend’s elderly dad can never go home as his street doesn’t exist anymore and not much of his city either. He can’t believe it, she is hugely stressed so I spend more time supporting her.
When it came to it, I didn’t move countries but still half regret it but that was choice and from one Western European country to another.
My guests don’t get how I live - I think they think I am scruffy and a bit poor but it’s all about different values and choices - home ownership and pensions rather than flash clothes and living for now in a really unstable political system - she worked for someone who rose and then fell hard as government changed long before the war.
Given my guest’s circumstances I am less generous than I might be for someone from Mariupol or wherever who was doing a v low paid job there and so for the OP it’s fine to adjust attitudes and level of support according to what you know and without guilt or searching for hidden trauma - you can’t solve that or help someone adjust perfectly to being in a different country whether by choice or not.

That's a really crass suggestion.

I wonder about this too.