For asking my Ukrainian guest to get a job so they can move out?

[Erith1985]

Wondering if anyone else is going through the same thing.

I’ve been hosting a Ukrainian guest at my house for six months. I’m appalled by the war and I have a big spare room with its own bathroom and so although I normally live alone by choice, I offered up my room. The first few months were ok, they are clean and tidy and were out and about a fair amount so we didn’t get in each other’s way. We didn’t discuss length of stay when they first arrived because I didn’t want them to feel unwelcome. I figured I would bring it up when they got a job.

That hasn’t happened. They say they have been sending off their CV and getting some interviews, but they haven’t secured anything. It seems they have only been looking at jobs in their previous sector, and that they have pretty high salary expectations since they’re complaining about the 45% tax rate. In the meantime, they’ve now settled into a routine that means they are at home nearly all the time - coming down to cook three times a day and only seeming to leave the house to go to the gym or the job centre, and spend most of the time in between instagramming. It feels like the heating and / or the oven is constantly on and they aren’t very communicative so when we’re in the shared space at the same time it feels awkward.

We finally had the conversation a month or so ago to say that I would like my hosting to end at the end of November, which they accepted on the basis that they were sure they would have secured one of the jobs they were going for by then, but there’s no sign of that being the case. When I ventured that they might need to look at work that wasn’t their first choice sector, they looked at me like I was mad and said that they’d rather start her own business (!) They’ve also mentioned several times how expensive flats in our area are and how they needs the big salary they want to be able to afford it.

I’m really just at a loss for how to handle this situation - I obviously won’t be turfing them out on the streets but how do I make them see that they might have to accept work that is not their ideal and work towards it? And / or rent a room that is outside of London to be able to afford it? They have great language skills, and there’s no reason they couldn’t find work other than they aren’t willing to consider something which isn’t their “dream job” and furthering their career; I totally get wanting that, but not at the expense of being able to support yourself. I’m worried that I am now just stuck hosting as long as they want me to, and the Council have been no help (basically got a letter saying “no other hosts available and we hope you’ll help them as long as they need you”.)

Am I being unreasonable for wanting them to work harder at getting a job (any job) so that I can have my house back?

It's a nice gesture to do this though.

I saw a BBC Breakfast news article briefly this morning re private renters of 70 in UK. One woman was saying she'd have to work until she dropped almost.

I get we have to help asylum seekers, migrants etc but not fair on British people who've paid taxes/NI all their lives and can't afford to retire for whatever reason and also not eligible for council accommodation.

A cousin of mine lives/works in Kosovo (Kosovan wife) and does aid work and has also worked in Georgia, Maripol etc so knows the situation around Ukrainians etc. His wife is in the media there too... not saying what she does as could be outing.

In reality it is always the most able - i.e. usually the middle classes who leave first. Those who speak the language and have the means to get out are by definition the wealthiest parts of society. Those are not the people who are likely to want to become waiters or work in a shop. However, just because they may not themselves have been under bombs doesn't mean they are not traumatised. It also doesn't meant that they intended to stay here indefinitely.

As a general question/rule, what do people think people visiting from e.g. Ukraine or other countries accept as jobs? As e.g. refugees?

My grandad originally came to this country from France/Holland as a dual national (I think?) born in Luxembourg. I have no idea if he was a refugee. Originally worked in banking in Paris but not suitable in UK.

He then got a job in a paper mill/factory presumably in admin side and then in Berlitz language school teaching French/German.

His family were upper class aristocrats (almost) and his DB eventually was director of mining company and travelled all over the world but grandad wasn't really that sort of person.

When my Bosnian friend came to UK from Bosnia she went to music college, was an au pair, waitress, got an office job as PA/office manager and then finally through her work (at a university) trained to be an accountant and has been SAHM/W too but not for long and a music teacher.

My grandad was traumatised as a young child in Germany in WW1 and they lost everything and were treated as refugees due to his father being dual national English/French and his mum was German, he was born in Luxembourg. Could speak English/high German/French fluently and when he moved to Holland learned Dutch fluently. He was also traumatised losing his home, his family were split, dad sent to hard labour camp in Germany etc... and grandad moved to England and got his DM here before WW2 broke out.

Honestly, my impression of the Ukrianians who came here was that initially they assumed they would be able to get middle class jobs just like back home. Indeed, technically they are not under the usual refugee convention as they do have a right to work. Normal refugees do not until their status is regularised which can take years. Thats obviously not true for all Ukrainians - a lot of Ukrainians working in Poland in the past have been in many different sectors. My impression is simply that the initial groups who came to the UK both assumed that it would be short and that they could get decent work. However, seeing as a lot have stayed presumably many of them will get which ever work they can or go elsewhere either to other parts of the EU or Ukraine

I'm hosting, next month will be 8 months. My guest now has a full time job waitressing on minimum wage and speaks conversational English. Her 16yo daughter who im also hosting is doing GCSEs. They share a room. It cant be easy sharing a bed with your teen daughter. She gives me £100 a month. She has given me $10k in USD to put in my safe. It's her life savings. Arguably, she is ready to leave and rent. I've said she can stay for another quarter after Christmas. And she has had UC for a few months. I mean she is doing really good now and well done.

What I don't get, and I see this A LOT with Ukrainian guests in my East Midlands community...even ones who have sorted themselves out proper like mine ... is why they don't want to have their own space, rent their own place, and be independent? Living under my rules with my family is not easy at all. If i were them, I'd want to leave ASAP and have my own space. I see a big reluctance from Ukrainians to do this and it's like they have to be pushed. Maybe it's just all about the money and they just don't want to pay market rents but I dunno. They can easily get a house share or rent a 1 bed studio and still bring home decent money where I live.

I think its a mental thing come to think of it. They want the war to be over and go home immediately. They don't want any commitments. I can understand that. Still. I don't know how they can just stay in their rooms all the time.

OK. I am only halfway through this thread but I want to toss a few things into the stew here because I actually myself was a refugee (as a child) with my parents. I was 14. My father was a well-regarded professional, my mother not technically employed but very vocal against the regime, we left because they were both targeted individually, therefore luckily for us asylum-seekers even in the narrowest sense, and before full-on war broke out and everyone was leaving.

Part of the issue is how the migrant thinks of their situation. If it's temporary in a country of refuge, you might be more willing to take a temporary job with a temporary loss of status, believing you can eventually go back to your "real life." On the other side, if you know it's permanent and you can never go back, you might also resign yourself to a permanent change: but equally likely, you might fight hard against any loss of status. The problem is that you don't know at first, or for a long time. Ukraine is clearly in that situation now: the Russians have backed away from Kherson but are now attacking a bit randomly with bombs and power cuts etc in other places, including Kiev, for example.

And there are stages in your feelings about what's going on: six months, in fact, is a well-known stage for culture shock to set in badly even for people who choose to move as "expats." And there are other issues: my father, for instance, worked mopping floors and cleaning toilets in public buildings but he was not prepared to accept that his children's futures should be forever lowered too. (I now, as an adult, understand this looking back; I know I didn't understand this at the time.) And he feared that being a cleaner would hamper his ability to pay for our education and futures; granting that our host countries had reasonable state schools, but even that he didn't believe for a long time.

OP, your Ukrainians need to be pushed to think about whether their situation is temporary or permanent. At the moment it is only six months and they are probably still trying hard not to think about it more than they have to. And the sad truth is that our government also doesn't know, and neither does their government, and neither does Russia. Will Moscow retreat more? Will Ukraine accept a settlement without Crimea? Will Ukrainians who have finally got their children settled in schools here be willing to go back to bombed cities and risk that Russia could well try again in a decade?

I know this isn't practical advice, but it's how things are.

. is why they don't want to have their own space, rent their own place, and be independent?

Because they wouldn't be able to save money or send any home. They'd be working just to pay outgoings and would have nothing left at the end of the month, like many brits.

@allswellthatends that's very insightful, thank you for posting. Time is so short in the scheme of things, by mid 2023, most Ukrainians will be forced out of their host homes anyway as the scheme ends. I don't really see many hosts wanting to continue.

I've stressed to Ukrainians from the start that given the situation in Ukraine, if they have kids to plan for the medium to long term with the assumption that they wouldn't be able to go back to Ukraine within 6 months even if the war was short because of the extent of the destruction of infrastructure, homes and mining. Staying here 3 years is a realistic time frame, even with a short war. I think saying it, made a few pennies drop. Given the war has rattled on, perhaps longer than expected, and the prospect of the hardship of going home kicks in it also has an impact.

(Not sure about this being extended as after 5 years residency rights change and they'd qualify to apply for indefinite right to remain - though this decision is likely to fall to a Labour government which will put a slightly different spin on things)

And no, even more generous hosts who agree to let guests stay for a year, are unlikely to be willing to let that slip further in significant numbers.

I am not willing to extend hosting beyond a year. If it was the choice between that and my guest being homeless I'd reluctantly consider renting the room at a commercial rate to her but I really do think a year is more than enough for a healthy young woman with decent English to find her feet and be independent. It won't be the life she thinks she should have - studio flat in central London - but that is true for almost everyone her age wherever they came from.

I have told her repeatedly she needs to be saving, and try hard to bite my tongue when I see more new clothes in her room. Her money, her choice but I worry that the perceived safety net of "Laurel will provide" is not focusing her mind on what she needs to be doing. We have had numerous chats about it and I can see the penny still hasn't really dropped.

I think that's it.
Living with hosts they're quite comfortable financially, even on UC. Once they move out, even if working full time, it's very likely to be straight into British levels of poverty which may be shockingly poor for them.

It's hard, a lot of Ukrainians who came are middle class and thought they were coming to a middle class country. That's just not really the case anymore. Plus no one thought or wanted to think that the war was going to drag on. I think a period of adjustment is happening all around us

Living with hosts they're quite comfortable financially, even on UC. Once they move out, even if working full time, it's very likely to be straight into British levels of poverty which may be shockingly poor for them.

This was indeed the case with the lady I was hosting. She really really resisted independent living and ended up going to live with an other host after our agreement ended. She was open about the fact that she wanted to save, send money home, and didn't want to work only to live somewhere horrible and have no money left....

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I think the lady who's been staying with me since May has been in a bubble of inertia. It's completely understandable. However, when I've been forced into seeking new employment to make ends meet because inflation took away any comfort zone I once had, and she's generally sat around in a dressing gown with her feet up on the bed most days, it's got my goat. There are limits. It's small things....not ever buying a 4 pack of loo roll for the house, not once hoovering her room. I'm pretty sure most people from Ukraine don't mind buying the occasional loo roll for the house they're staying in?!
I know that sounds really petty but the bubble has to burst some time and loo roll is always needed.

It is undoubtedly a shock for them. We have had a lot of conversations about the reality of life here for many people - she doesn't see it in our nice well off home so why should she appreciate that many people can't afford to eat, or that almost all young people in London are in less than great housing set ups, or that compared to other refugees (I know Ukrainians don't have refugee status which is a whole other discussion) they are so much better off.

But I do wish that once that was pointed out and understood there was more of an attempt to respond accordingly and to accept some of the limitations that come with being here. Wanting a one bedroom flat in zone 2 does not mean getting one, for example. If she wants to stay and stay in London she needs to compromise and save hard and even then it won't be exactly what she wants. I have tonnes of empathy for the impact of displacement and trauma but after seven months my patience is wearing slightly thin. I work with refugees, migrants and asylum seekers and can say with 100% certainty her situation is completely different and she is starting from a position of enormous relative privilege.

@LaurelGrove you are right but I wonder how long it will take. Ukrainians really do have a special status, sadly in the UK a right to work still often only gets you a low paid job. That is infinitely better than being an Afghan refugee and having to do illegal work but still not the same as having a nice middle class job in Ukraine. I wonder how many will move back to other parts of the EU

Afghan refugees can work legally.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60425301

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/press/a-tale-of-two-protection-systems-afghan-refugees-turn-to-small-boats-while-ukrainians-use-safe-and-legal-routes-to-reach-uk/

Somes of this may just because they are young (some reminds me of living with my student children - not vaccuuming a floor, not buying toilet paper, sleeping until lunch time whilst I am up at 7am to work full time). Now may be the time to encourage some to return home if they would not like the reality of renting a room in a house share in an area of the country where they may not want to live.

And good post above from allswell. At my sons' old school (fee paying) at one stage one of my sons was the only white boy in his class (we are in London) and part of the reason was so many first or second generation immigrants were happy to put every last penny even of 4 adult salaries into paying a set of school fees for the child who would gain a great education and do well. (A lovely work ethic by the away amongst which my sons grew up).

I do not understand why other refugees can't have the right to work. They're holed up in hotels and it may as well be a prison. A man from Iran who escaped for genuine safety reasons (he had a death threat on his head) was interviewed by The Guardian and he has three degrees and speaks seven languages. He's an astrophysicist. He's been in the same hotel in Reading for 13 months!! Why can't he work? What's wrong with our government that they can't put a system in place that enables skilled asylum seekers to find a meaningful life here? He said he's been overwhelmed by the kindness of local people in Reading who have brought him items, lent him books to read etc and he sees the disconnect between UK people and our government. I half suspect we've all been deployed as political fodder during the current conflict, hosting people who have been offered respite in kind homes but it does not sit easy with me. I may not host again but I will speak up for asylum seekers more strongly now.