Great having a family here again, says host for Ukrainian refugees

Hugh Cowell said having refugees in his home was like having family

A refugee host is calling for more people to volunteer to open their homes to Ukrainians fleeing the war.

Hugh Cowell, 70, has had five refugees sharing his home in Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent.

"It's great having a family here again," he said, but added a year into the Homes for Ukraine programme, more volunteer hosts were needed.

In Stoke-on-Trent, there are currently 22 hosts who are sharing their home with Ukrainian refugees.

"Back in April [2022], there were a lot of hosts," Mr Cowell said. "There was a lot of choice.

"The situation is very different now."

Stoke-on-Trent City Council said the number of people applying to be sponsors had reduced in recent months.

A spokesperson said the 22 hosts in the city sometimes had families living with them while others were hosting couples or single refugees.

Mr Cowell lives alone and said his house was ideal for the scheme

Among Mr Cowell's guests is Tanya and her two children, Tymur, eight, and Tina, four.

Tanya is emotional when she thinks about home but her children are settling in well at school.

Mr Cowell sees the children as like his grandchildren and Tanya as like his daughter.

"I'm living on my own, I've got an old house, I've got a lot of space," he said about his decision to volunteer as a host.

Although he admits he was worried he perhaps wouldn't be everyone's first choice.

"I'm an old bloke and I actually cross dress as a woman quite a lot," he said.

"Now that doesn't get all the ticks in the boxes and I knew I'd be rejected by quite a few."

The government launched the Ukraine Sponsorship scheme in March 2022 which allowed Ukrainian nationals and family members to come to the UK if they had a named sponsor who could provide accommodation.

Almost 100,000 refugees took up the offer. However, after sponsorship ended for thousands in December, there were reports of a number of Ukrainian families registering with councils as having nowhere to live.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council said it had worked closely with sponsors over the past year and refugees had "formed positive relationships with the sponsors and local communities".

Mr Cowell now wants to encourage more people to become hosts in the city.

"It's much harder now," he said. "Hosts are really rare."