However, refugee resettlement continues in ‘Your Waverley.’
The Council supports refugee families from Syria and Afghanistan, ensuring they receive health and financial support and helping children in education.
Samantha Hutchison, Executive Head for Communities, recently told the Council’s Overview & Services Committee members that they were helping families achieve independence.
She said,
We are also working on ensuring our pledge to home 20 Afghan families under the resettlement scheme is achieved over the next six months, and this will align with the Government initiative to move Afghan families from bridging hotels into housing.
Members heard that support for Ukrainian families continued, and many families remained with their hosts.
However, there is a serious decline in new expressions of interest to host families and we anticipate as the crisis continues that many of the families currently hosted will need accommodation.
The team continued to work with families to find private-sector housing; many landlords now request six months’ rent in advance, which is a challenge.
There is a promise of further central government funding to help alleviate the housing challenges associated with resettlement that are facing local councils, but Waverley awaits further details.
The Council has been allocated £2.039m from the Government’s Local Authority Housing Fund to support refugee accommodation which is split £1.67m to deliver ten homes under the central element of the funding and £369,531 to provide one 4-bed home under the bridging element. An officer working group has been set up to deliver the homes using these funds. The Executive Head of Finance has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, and there is a requirement to report progress on delivery to the DLUHC.
It’s time SCC started looking at the number of properties in the Council owned by the hostile regime and considered action to use those properties to house refugees.
Additionally consider how many properties in the County with more than four bedrooms.
Ohh that’s too much!
This is War.
The Ukrainians are fighting it on your behalf so you can have your holidays and lifestyle. So you can pretend it has nothing to do with you. Well it has The are getting bombed. You are not.
This has happened before, we would prefer to forget it, it hasn’t gone away, it has to be faced down. Call it what you will but bullies must never be allowed to prosper.
Wake up to a harsh reality we are in a fight.
Do your bit. Feel free to make sure others do too!
MeaningslessMud
As we try to get on with our lives the plight of refugees from Ukraine might slip into the background. This amazing conversation between two Ukrainian women who live in Cranleigh is definitely worth watching. It’s in two parts Darija Mishchenko talks with her life-long friend Oksana Burt – the wife of our Baptist minister, about life in Irpin before and during the war and her escape to Cranleigh. The second episode is about her brother Dmytro who died fighting the Russians.
I think it is important we hear these stories. They certainly give context to our continuing support for these guys and I hope will be a lasting legacy for our community.
Here are the links:
https://www.facebook.com/cranleighstories/videos/215639987974811
https://www.facebook.com/cranleighstories/videos/646088244235597
Thank you Mr Freeston we will be following this up with a dedicated post. You are absolutely right this puts the whole rotten Ukranian War and the suffering of its people into context.