Empowering Communities: Delivering rental assistance to conflict-affected households in Ukraine

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine. The active conflict continues two years on, with 3.67 million Ukrainians displaced internally and 5.97 million Ukrainians displaced across Europe. Given continued shelling, extensive damage to over 1.4 million homes, an estimated $10.5 billion USD in damage and losses to energy infrastructure, and the exhaustion of coping strategies and savings, significant multi-sector needs are expected to continue for families on the frontline and internally displaced persons (IDPs) throughout 2024.

In August 2022, CORE conducted an assessment of IDP shelter preferences in Lvivska Oblast to inform the design of its rental assistance program in Ukraine, which found that half of surveyed IDPs wished to secure private housing, but faced significant financial barriers to doing so.

This learning brief focuses on lessons drawn from CORE’s Ukraine Humanitarian Fund (UHF)-supported rental assistance program to 300 households, which was implemented from December 2022 to August 2023 in Lviv and Lvivska oblast, and includes recommendations for scaling in this context in 2024.