Fresh homes and fresh starts for families in Chernihiv – welcome to UNHCR’s “Core homes”

Losing one’s home and community is devastating. But it is a reality for some 1.4 million households across Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. One-third of these homes are damaged beyond repair.

In order to provide these families and communities with a roof over their heads while their destroyed home is being repaired, UNHCR is providing core homes to war-affected families.

By providing a place to live, UNHCR is stabilizing lives, protecting people from the risks of displacement, and enabling them to live in their communities with dignity. Providing a safe space that can be called ‘home’ can be lifesaving.

On 13 June, UNHCR Shelter and Protection colleagues undertook a monitoring visit to Chernihivska oblast to follow-up on the delivery and installation of nine ‘core homes’, and to hear from the families now living in these pre-fabricated, Ukrainian made homes.

Chernihivska oblast, located to the northeast of Kyiv and bordering the Russian Federation and Belarus, was massively impacted in March and April of 2022 by the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. According to the second Ukraine Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (February 2022 – February 2023), as much as USD 1,833 million in damages was inflicted on the housing stock.

At the same time, Chernihivska oblast is one of the areas that was quickly retaken by the Ukrainian government and today, it has security conditions conducive to recovery and durable solutions.

A core home is a prefabricated house for those who have lost their homes entirely that is delivered and installed on their land, or on locally available plots in their communities in existing neighbourhoods, and within the existing social and physical infrastructure. They are simple to maintain and have the full functionality of a home (standard kitchen, furniture, toilet, bathroom, and appliances).

The nine core homes we visited are part of a pilot batch of 100 core homes, which is nearing completion. All 100 were produced locally by a Ukrainian company and with care and maintenance can last a generation. They are also adapted to the Ukrainian climate, to keep comfortable indoor temperatures throughout the year.

The first home we visited belongs to Maria, where she lives with her husband and two children. When we arrive, her husband is at work and her mother is with her. Maria explains how they fled their home on the first day of the war and went to the city of Chernihiv to seek shelter. Before being evacuated further afield, they stayed in the basement of a puppet theatre for 10 days with crowds of people and their son who was just one month old at the time. A neighbour later sent them a photo of their house in flames.

Their new core home was installed on Saturday, just three days earlier, and they have moved in already.

Beyond inspecting each core home to ensure they were built and installed as required and all of the agreed appliances have been provided, a key component of the visits is to hear from the new owners about their experience so far and to ask for feedback. The visit provides an opportunity for the families to point out any issues and to ask additional questions. Importantly, they are also asked what they would change if they could, and this feedback will be used in future design and programming.

Nataliia, who has lived in her core home with her husband for almost a month already, explains that it would have been beneficial to have a small roof over the entrance for when it rains. This is a detail that will make it into the next tender for the next batch of core homes. Before moving into their core home, the couple were staying in their garden shed. An essential element of the approach is the residents’ sense of ownership of the house, emotional ownership as well as legal ownership. The new owners are encouraged to make the homes their own, and even to expand them when they are able to.

When we arrive to Liubov’s core home we see the rain shelter and fence that her husband and son installed. Liubov and her husband left their house when it was shelled and caught fire, leaving everything behind. They initially moved to a multi-story apartment block in Chernihiv and then later into the apartment of a friend who had fled to Europe, paying only for utilities. Now that they are back on their land, Liubov is keen to show us her vegetable garden (behind their destroyed house) which has sprung back to life since the end of winter. UNHCR is scaling-up following this pilot, taking lessons learned and suggestions into account, aiming to support many more households in the next phase.

 

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