On July 11, the Government adopted a resolution “Some Issues of Support for Internally Displaced Persons”, which amends the procedure for assigning living allowances to IDPs. This type of assistance is one of the most important tools to support people who have been forced to leave their permanent place of residence due to Russian aggression.

In order to improve the mechanisms of support for IDPs and strengthen the focus on those in difficult life circumstances, the resolution proposes the following innovations:

• Starting from August 1, 2023, the payment will be extended for another 6 months for all internally displaced persons who are currently receiving assistance. No additional actions are required to continue the payments, as they will be extended automatically.
• The payments of assistance to internally displaced persons will be made on the 15th and 28th of each month.
• For IDPs who apply for assistance for the first time AFTER 01.08.23, the assistance is granted for 6 months, per family, and will be paid monthly to one of the family members per family member:
• for persons with disabilities and children – UAH 3 thousand,
• for other persons – UAH 2 thousand.

For such families, assistance can be granted for another six-month period, if the family has one:

• children with disabilities,
• persons caring for a person with a disability,
• persons of retirement age,
• persons with three or more children under the age of 18,
• minors and underage children who arrived unaccompanied by a legal representative,
• if the total income per family member does not exceed 4 subsistence minimums.
• an unemployed able-bodied person who, during the first six months for which he or she received assistance, contributed to his or her economic independence.

In other words, in general, the period during which the state will financially support IDPs can be a year, so that citizens can use the time while the assistance is paid to integrate into the host community, find housing, employment, etc.

• The assistance is directed specifically to IDPs, not to those who have moved abroad or returned home. At the same time, the resolution also defines a list of justified reasons that entitle a person to keep receiving payments even if they have been abroad for a long time, such as a business trip, children’s health improvement, internship, treatment or rehabilitation, which is confirmed by relevant documents, death of family members or relatives, etc.

• The law introduces payments to IDPs who gave birth to children after displacement. This will resolve the problem that arose with receiving assistance for children born to IDPs after displacement and, accordingly, their registered place of residence coincided with the place of their parents’ declared residence.
• It is now possible to renounce the status of an internally displaced person remotely, without personally applying to the relevant authorities.
• The procedure for assigning payments to certain categories of IDPs is changing. Thus, payments will no longer be extended to persons who have been abroad for more than 30 consecutive calendar days without justified reasons; have returned to their abandoned place of residence; are serving a sentence in prison or have been convicted of collaboration.

Starting from September 1, 2023, payments will also be suspended to those IDPs who, since the adoption of the resolution, have purchased a new vehicle (less than 5 years since its manufacture); purchased a land plot, apartment, house, foreign currency for more than UAH 100 thousand; have more than UAH 100 thousand on deposit; own housing located outside the zone of active (possible) hostilities or in the unoccupied territories with an area of more than 13.65 m2 per family member.

The allowance is not granted to a recipient who is on full state support (for example, in an orphanage, psychoneurological boarding school, boarding school for the elderly and disabled, etc. or a boarding school, specialized military or military sports education institution).

If a decision is made to terminate the assistance based on the results of the verification of recipients through state registers, the citizen will be notified and will be able to appeal the decision. For a full list of changes to the procedure for assigning accommodation payments for internally displaced persons, please visit the website of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine https://bit.ly/3JVoGq7 and the infographic