How to help Ukrainians with accommodation in Poland. Volunteers' experiences, list of platforms
Out of a total of 3 million Ukrainian refugees, more than two million have gone to Poland. They are allowed to stay in the country for 18 months without documents. Belarusian volunteers living in Poland tell how they help refugees with housing.
How to stand with Ukraine is a series of materials about helping victims of the war in Ukraine: where to transfer money or bring clothes and food, how to help refugees find temporary or permanent shelter, and more. In this article, we share a list of platforms where you can place an advertisement if you also want to provide shelter for the people affected by the war.
Help us expand the list: leave links in the comments or send an email to dasha@dev.by
Anna, a C++ developer from Belarus, has been living in Poland since February 2021. She rents a 2-room apartment in Krakow, and hosts refugees in one of the rooms:
— In ten days, three Ukrainians have already stopped at my place. The first one was Lyudmila from Kyiv. She is about 60 years old, she stayed with me for two nights and then left for Spain to her daughter’s. The second refugee was Varya with her son Yegor, they arrived at night and left in the morning — we did not even have time to talk and get to know each other. I know that she was going to her sister’s in Poznan. The third girl we took in was Yulia from Odessa. Yulia lives with us now and plans to stay in the city for about a week. She teaches English to children (both at school and in private lessons). She doesn’t know yet whether to stay in the country or go «somewhere warmer», but she has already been offered to teach Ukrainian children in a Polish school.
Anya posted her offer at https://ukrainesupport.net/.
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Other Polish platforms where you can post offers for free housing for Ukrainian refugees:
- At the OLX Marketplace in the «Accommodation» category.
- Gumtree is another Polish platform, look for the Real Estate section there.
- Place an ad on the OtoDom real estate website.
- Use the Help for Refugees volunteer website.
- The UA SOS offers accommodation in any country.
- Ukrainenow helps with housing and transport.
- Dom Ukraiński/Nasz Wybór — send your accommodation offer to biuro@ukrainskidom.pl or call +48 22 258 40 18.
A number of international Internet platforms also support the volunteer initiative:
- EU4UA provides assistance with housing in Europe.
- Airbnb also opened a platform for posting ads to support Ukrainians.
The icanhelp platform was developed by Belarusians living in Poland since 2020, who teamed up with Iraqi refugee Farkhat and LGBT+ activist Nick Antipov.
We started working on the MVP, and released it on the first day, but it was pretty weak. Then we went to Pavel Lieber. He has this BY_MAPKA project, so we asked him for the source code, which allowed us to make another release right on the second day.There are already more than 7,000 housing offers on Icanhelp.host. There are about 1000 «busy» accounts right now — they all are hosting refugees at the moment. George himself rents two apartments in Kraków. He lives in one of them with his wife, and in the second he hosts a Belarusian family who had to leave the country.
According to Georgy, the platform is not as popular in Poland. Most of the housing offers are located in Berlin — 189 (at the time of writing). In Warsaw, on the other hand, there are only 15.
If you are ready to shelter refugees, submit your offer to Icanhelp.
Other ways to post a housing ad for refugees:
The Help Center for Foreigners is looking for housing in Warsaw and its vicinity.
You can also offer your help via local urząd (voivodeship administration). Here are their sites:
In the following articles, we will tell how to help Ukrainian refugees in Georgia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and other countries. You can also share your volunteer experience, and we’ll write about it.
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