Sheffield British-Ukrainian couple return to war-torn Ukraine due to cost and condition of UK rentals

Joe Place, a British 29-year-old PhD student and content writer from Sheffield, and his wife Irina, a 34-year-old Ukrainian working as a content manager, left their home in Kyiv in February to escape the invasion by Russia. They arrived in the UK by way of a Ukraine Family Scheme visa, rather than the Homes for Ukraine initiative.

While they were at first put up by family and friends, they then looked for a long-term place to stay in Sheffield or Nottingham – but were met with “terrible” housing conditions, high costs and rental requirements they couldn’t meet.

In fact, Mr Place said it would cost them up to £1,500 a month to rent in the UK, compared with £500 in Ukraine – which he added is still “kind of expensive” for the country. Further, housing agencies and landlords were asking for a previous year’s tax statement or six months of income in a UK bank account if they wanted to rent, which they could not provide.

Now, after struggling for seven months to find a permanent home, the couple has returned to Ukraine and they are now living in the western city of Uzhhorod – despite the prospect of power outages due to Russian missile strikes.

“This comes to the problem that everyone in the UK seems to be facing with finding (a rental),” Mr Place said.

“We doubled our budget and more … we had a very strict list of requirements and we just kept going ‘OK, well, compromise on this, compromise on this, compromise on this’.

“Anything we got even remotely close to getting was just terrible.”

In fact, the couple only arrived in Western Ukraine in September for a short visit to see family – but decided to stay as a result of the housing conditions they faced in the UK.

“We realised we actually quite like it back here, and we’re OK,” Mr Place said.

“We wouldn’t want to live back in Kyiv right now because it’s not safe, but where we are it is very safe, mostly anyway.”

Mr Place said because Russia has been hitting Ukrainian infrastructure with missile strikes, they are prepared for electricity and heating outages.

“They’re trying to get people to get prepared that you might lose the electricity and heating for a bit,” he said.

“That is something that is going to affect all of us, and that’s going to be difficult.

"The west of Ukraine, where it’s safer, the house prices have gone up quite a lot and the rents have gone up – a lot of the locals struggle.

“But obviously for us coming from the UK … [£500] is still really affordable.”

Mrs Place was on a Ukraine Family Scheme visa but said she did not receive the same amount of support from the government as those on the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

“It’s been incredible (the Homes for Ukraine scheme) … I hope we continue this approach for other crises,” Mr Place said.

A Government spokesperson said: “Taken together, our generous Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family schemes are one of the fastest and biggest visa programmes in UK history, with over 196,000 visas issued and more expected to come through these uncapped routes.

“We expect Ukrainians entering the UK through the Ukraine Family Scheme to be primarily supported by family members, but they are also entitled to three years’ leave to remain and full access to work, study and benefits — including Universal Credit.

“Local authorities have a duty to provide support to people on the family scheme, including homelessness where required.”