The Rehousing Ukraine Initiative – a head start on national recovery

The Rehousing Ukraine Initiative – a head start on national recovery

By: Derek Long , Co-director of the Rehousing Ukraine Initiative and AHI board member

The challenges of rebuilding the housing and markets of a country of 34 million people are immense. [....] The winter will focus on the basics of shelter – but the thinking continues about how to reform a market where 94% of housing is privately owned and where municipal or social housing is almost unknown and private renting is largely undercover.

It all started with a wry email to my long-time friend David Smith, AHI’s founder, and CEO.

Fast-forward seven months, 1,000+ more emails from me and goodness knows how many from David and our Rehousing Ukraine partners we’ve encountered and joined with, and AHI is helping to kickstart Ukraine’s rebuilding and national recovery.

Only three weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I’d emailed David, sharing my wafer-thin expertise in US football and an article I had written about Britain’s response to displaced Ukrainians. (When the harassed Ukrainians had finally completed Britain’s paperwork, more would turn up than we expected and in places we had not planned for.) Within a few weeks, through the alchemy of Gmail, Zoom, international agency friends, AHI staff, and David’s wizardry in making things happen, we had turned base electrons into the gold of the Rehousing Ukraine Initiative - a resource to facilitate Ukraine’s thinking about their future housing solutions and markets.

Why is Ukraine a priority for the Affordable Housing Institute?

Ukraine is arguably the largest immediate housing policy challenge any country has faced since World War II:

• 5 to 7 million people on the move (1 in 7 Ukrainians)
• 815,000 damaged or destroyed homes
• 5% of the total national stock
• Concentrations of destruction e.g. Donetsk (29%), Luhansk (20%), Kyiv (18%), Kharkiv (15%)
• $39.2bn in damage, with $13.3bn in losses (physical cost)
• Rubble in Ukraine’s cities estimated to be equivalent to 700 Twin Towers
• The demining will take years

Why think about Ukraine’s future? Surely the present is challenge enough?

• When the war ends in Ukraine, the country will need to accelerate through the phases of relief, reconstruction, recovery, and reform.
• Rehousing the homeless and displaced will be an engine for that recovery and will be in the cockpit of reform.
• Ukraine will be rightly focused on winning the war. The Globalocracy of agencies will rightly be focused on relieving immediate needs of the refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs).
• The temporary spotlight of resources and support will rapidly move on, so it is essential that temporary initiatives lead confidently on to recovery and reform.
• The future has already arrived – people were rebuilding almost from day 1. Ukraine cannot afford to wait.

How does the Rehousing Ukraine Initiative work?

Through research and the extensive networks of David and AHI’s president, Anya Brickman Raredon, we have put together a global brain?trust of experts in areas like housing systems, regulation, finance, migration, reconstruction, and housing law.

Where there’s a gap, we reach out. If you think you can help, please get in touch.

Our brain trust is in permanent session. Colleagues opt in to work on projects for example, identified by the Ukrainian Ministries for Regions, Communities and Territories, for Veterans and for Infrastructure. Our live projects include a municipality converting hotels into accommodation for IDPs and developing new build housing for veterans and IDPs

Yes, but where are Ukrainians voices in all this?

At the core, Ukrainian Voices – Ukrainian Visions – Ukrainian Decisions is the mantra.

Our friends in INTEGRITES, a major Ukrainian based law firm, became our main teaming partner. From early contact with a displaced academic in Tbilisi, we have built relationships with the Kyiv School of Economics (who calculate the total war damage for the Ukraine Government), CEDOS (a national social and economic policy think tank) and Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Institute. Additionally, at least half of any paid commissions goes to Ukrainians. We publish and broadcast in English and Ukrainian (through Integrites).

What have we produced so far?

Some of our work is confidential and covered by our memoranda of understanding with the Ukrainian Ministries who have commissioned us. Our public outputs can be accessed from our Rehousing Ukraine Hub . These include:

• The videos of three 90-minute virtual open conferences attended by over 200 people addressed by 15 speakers (11 of which were Ukrainian).
• Rehousing Ukraine – Investing in the Future, proceedings of the conferences
• English-Ukrainian Glossary of Housing and Urban Development Terms
• Ten principles for Ukraine’s Housing Recovery

Where does the money come from?

Our efforts during the past seven months have been pro bono for Ukraine, and rest heavily on AHI’s generosity. The challenges of rebuilding the housing and markets of a country of 34 million people are immense. Where there is funding, we are now competing for international agencies’ technical assistance contracts.?Where there is not, we will seek other support to carry on our work.

What next …?

Ukraine has changed a lot in only seven months. From a society absorbing the destruction, displacement, and daily human consequences of war, Ukraine is now successfully recapturing much of its lost territory, and confidently working towards a more European future. The winter will focus on the basics of shelter – but the thinking continues about how to reform a market where 94% of housing is privately owned and where municipal or social housing is almost unknown and private renting is largely undercover. The Rehousing Ukraine Initiative is planning our next contributions for 2023.

Oh yes, and seven months on the media is again full of speculation about a certain quarterback retiring. Now, I must email David about that…

Derek Long is Co-Director of the Rehousing Ukraine Initiative at the Affordable Housing Institute. In his spare time, he is a housing consultant based in the UK.

To contact the Rehousing Ukraine Initiative, email [email protected]