"Ukraine Take Shelter", a platform to help Ukrainian refugees find temporary shelter

Refugees fleeing Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Monday, March 7, 2022. AP - Visar Kryeziu

Text by: Carrie Nooten Follow

3 mins

A platform that connects hosts and individuals looking for a room, this is the concept that has been popularized by AirBnB.

Except that the 

site was created to help connect Ukrainian refugees with people around the world who are willing to provide them with a room or an apartment.

In 18 days, 25,000 listings were created and one million users visited the site.

Advertising

Read more

From our correspondent in New York

, 

The principle of

is very simple.

All the refugee has to do is indicate the name of the city where he is looking for accommodation and lists of proposals appear with filters: the duration already - emergency accommodation, transitional accommodation for a few days, or long-term accommodation, the number of places available, whether children are allowed, whether pets are welcome.

And then a direct contact by WhatsApp for free international calls.

All in 16 languages ​​- the European languages ​​of all neighboring countries of Ukraine.

In short, the best of technology at the service of the first victims of this war: the civilians forced to leave their country.

Some Ukrainians decide to leave their homeland only once they have found an offer beforehand, like the members of this family from Kharkiv, who were offered a country house in France.

Three days later, when they had just put down their bags, they learned that their home in Ukraine had been completely destroyed by a missile.

For them, the platform saved their lives.

►

: 

The UN outdated

Three million Ukrainians have fled the country so far according to the UN.

Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania are the destinations that have welcomed the most Ukrainians in a fairly reactive way, but with the awareness of being overwhelmed.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) does not hide either that it was completely taken aback by the war and that assistance is taking time to be put in place.

The platform recognizes both its usefulness and its limitations.

In volume already, since it is far from offering 3 million housing units.

But also, she is aware of the potential dangers of putting hosts online so quickly without being able to verify their profiles when it is well known that refugee women and children can be particularly vulnerable during these humanitarian crises, being exploited, be violent.

Also a list of recommendations and questions that refugees can ask the hosts before confirming their arrival are detailed.

🚨 https://t.co/ZfCfGUm1NP now has a comprehensive host verification process:

Hosts are now required to scan their passport, drivers license, or other government ID, which is verified as real, and then crosschecked with facial recognition software to confirm that the ID matches.

pic.twitter.com/Xih1FZ9upR

— Avi Schiffmann 🇺🇦 (@AviSchiffmann) March 21, 2022

A service put online quickly

Two Harvard students created the site.

They are 18 and 19 years old.

Avi Schiffmann was touched by requests for help from Ukrainian Americans during a protest.

It's not the first time this teenager has used his passion for tech in the service of larger causes.

He had already built an interactive map of

protests , as well as a site to track Covid-19.

He called his friend Marco Burstein and in three days, three nights, they created the whole platform and launched it on March 3.

In one week, 4,000 housing offers had already been posted!

The two friends are now working to also integrate the listings of rental platforms and NGOs, and to check the offers too.

Finally, they would like to set up similar platforms for Syrian and Afghan refugees.

► Also to listen

: 

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• Ukraine

• Humanitarian

• NGO

• Refugees

• UN

• our selection