Habitat has been working on the ground in Ukraine since September 2022 through partnerships with local and international organisations, offering interventions aimed at home and community infrastructure repairs and supplying resources and technical expertise for home weatherisation.

Repairing Homes and Infrastructure in Northern and Eastern Ukraine

In 2023, Habitat and its partners Catholic Relief Services, Caritas Spes and Caritas Ukraine implemented the Homes and Communities Assistance to Vulnerable Conflict-Affected Households in Ukraine project, which provided critical repairs to homes and community infrastructure.

The program included referrals, cash assistance or repair support for participating households. People with war-damaged houses could purchase materials or hire workers to make repairs. By the end of the nine-month project,

Habitat and its partners completed 619 home repairs in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, including two community infrastructure repairs in Kharkiv.

Energy Modernisation in Odesa

Habitat partnered with the Odesa Housing Union, a local nonprofit organisation representing over 660 multifamily buildings in Odesa, to implement the project Habitat for Odessaites, carrying out energy-efficient upgrades of the heating systems of multiapartment buildings and ensuring the basements could offer shelter to people during air raids.

As a result of the project, the heating systems in 16 buildings were upgraded, benefiting over 2,700 people, and energy consumption is expected to decrease by 25-30%. By April 2024, Habitat and the Odesa Housing Union will modernise an additional eight buildings, improving the energy security of an estimated 700 people.

Delivering Stoves in Kharkiv and Kherson

In partnership with Volunteer Corps, Habitat funded the construction and delivery of 250 stoves to the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. The wood-burning stoves cost about £85 to produce, including distribution costs, and are made in Kyiv by a company that normally builds long-haul trucks.

Families who received stoves were living in apartment buildings or homes that were damaged and didn’t have adequate electricity or heating.

The stoves enable individuals and families to remain warm during the winter and to cook food, even without regular access to gas and electricity. An additional 200 stoves will be distributed later in the year.

Item Distribution to Collection Centres in Ukraine

Habitat coordinated the supply of non-food items to 10 collective centres in Lviv and Czerasy through partnerships with the western regional shelter cluster, the United Nations

Refugee Agency and Lviv Oblast administration. Nearly 1,000 internally displaced people, predominantly elderly Ukrainians whose homes were destroyed in the war, benefited from the assistance. The essential items distributed include furniture – sofas, desks, tables and chairs – and repair materials. Volunteer Corps also distributed more than 300 electric stoves, along with desks, chairs and wardrobe components, to individuals in the Mykolaiv region.

We will continue providing housing solutions and expanding our work in Ukraine and throughout the region, as well as continuing our work in responding to housing needs for displaced families who have fled the war.