[LRUG] Homes For Ukraine Scheme - tech to fill the gap?

[Patrick Gleeson]

Thank you for the offer! The more I dig into this (chatting to people
volunteering near the Polish border, researching what else people are
setting up), the more it seems like there are basic tech solutions already
in place (e.g. https://prykhystok.in.ua/, https://www.shelter4ua.com/en).
So, contrary to my first thoughts, the first problem isn't so much that
these things don't exist, but rather than people in the UK don't know about
them, and are instead resorting to things like
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1161142981324270/, which, while wonderful
and well-meaning, are hardly the most efficient places. So throwing another
platform into the mix isn't necessarily the best way forward, while
directing people towards the ones that already exist is perhaps more useful.

The second problem is that traumatised, non-English-speaking families, who
need jobs, transportation, schooling, counselling etc, aren't necessarily
best served by being split up into individual households and dotted around
the English countryside where their basic needs might not be met. So rather
than individual-to-individual matching, what's really needed is
group-to-group matching, with more nuanced conversations about needs and
facilities than a basic web platform might accommodate.

So perhaps the moral of this story is actually the moral of almost *all* such
stories, which is that tech, while useful, isn't a panacea! And my
knee-jerk reaction of: "I see a problem; I'll build a Rails app to solve
it!" is as inappropriate here as it was in most of my previous side
projects...

On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 at 10:02, Christine Wong <christine.wong at fresha.com>
wrote:

> Hi Patrick,
>
> Do you need help with this? My partner is Ukrainian so he would probably
> be delighted to help where he can.
>
> On Mon, Mar 14, 2022 at 6:56 PM Patrick Gleeson <
> patrick.c.gleeson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> It sounds like <https://archive.ph/ZSQiY> the initial implementation of
>> the UK's 'Homes for Ukraine' scheme will only allow individuals in this
>> country to offer housing to Ukrainian refugees if they can specifically
>> name them. This is because there's no vetting process, so de-risks opening
>> up your home to a total stranger. BUT for people who have a spare room or
>> two and are happy to take in a stranger, it makes it much harder to help.
>>
>> There's a suggestion that Brits with spare rooms and Ukrainians trying to
>> enter the UK can find each other via social media, but that seems wildly
>> inefficient.
>>
>> It seems to me that a really simple web-app, where people can list their
>> availabilities/requirements and find contact details of people who match,
>> could be knocked up in Rails in about an hour. And it could do a lot of
>> good very fast.
>>
>> I'm nervous of doing it by myself, because I don't speak Ukrainian, and,
>> not having worked in anything to do with immigration/asylum/UK govt
>> processes, I'm not sure I'm on top of the legal/privacy/security
>> constraints a site like that would have to operate under.
>>
>> Does anyone on this list feel more qualified than me?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Patrick
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