Toulouse: what you need to know to host a family of Ukrainian refugees
Accommodation and support for Ukrainian refugees arriving in Toulouse are supervised by the Haute-Garonne prefecture, which has written a long letter to local authorities on the procedures for the procedure. The State services recorded, Monday, March 28, 738 requests for temporary protection. An underestimated figure, taking into account some refugees who did not take any steps.
More than 1,000 Toulouse residents have registered on the town hall’s website to welcome a Ukrainian family. But they are a lot on the waiting list because the procedure is long to commit sometimes to the long term.
The city of Toulouse, twinned with the Ukrainian capital kyiv, temporarily accommodates in a gymnasium in the city center nearly 200 people out of 250 recent arrivals, and has enabled 64 women with children to find a roof in Toulouse with a host.
738 applications for temporary protection
“Twelve other additional refugees arrived last weekend, the Capitol confirmed on Monday March 28. Those who were to come from Nice finally chose to go to Spain and Portugal, where they had attachés. The Haute-Garonne prefecture has registered “738 requests for temporary protection which have been filed” in the department.
And to clarify: “However, today there are probably more Ukrainian nationals in the department, some of whom have not yet taken this step”. Decryption.
Ten million Ukrainians are fleeing the fighting.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24, more than 10 million have fled the fighting, 3.5 million have already crossed the Polish border. The State services which took charge of supporting Ukrainians on French soil, from their arrival to their accommodation and subsequent follow-up. The Haute-Garonne prefecture recently published a long Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for local authorities.
Who coordinates the allocation of housing/accommodation to displaced persons?
In the department, it is the prefect (Etienne Guyot) who carries out “the analysis, qualification and exploitation of housing and citizen accommodation offers, then the orientation of these offers by carrying out the matching of households , housing offers and associations”. In addition to entire dwellings which must be favoured, accommodation proposals favored by individuals in their homes can be mobilised. Each prefecture appoints a referent association whose mission is to put in contact the welcoming volunteers and the displaced persons (after evaluation of the motivations of the parties concerned), to ensure the quality of the reception conditions, to ensure the follow-up of the stay and social support”.
In Toulouse, “for the moment, agents accompany Ukrainian families to their hosts”, provide the communication service.
Avoid drifts.
“The solutions, added to the prefecture, take away problems inherent in cohabitation and risks taking into account the vulnerability of displaced households. They must therefore ensure a particular follow-up to which particular attention must be paid. It is therefore essential that these citizen initiatives be prohibited, in conjunction with State services and associations, in order to prevent potential abuses”.
Calibrated housings.
If possible not far “from a good public transport service”, recommends the prefecture, “in order to avoid any situation of isolation [des réfugiés] and guarantee access to public services”. Free accommodation is preferred, but if the family wishes to pay its Ukrainian rent, it cannot exceed the ceiling for personalized housing assistance (APL), state services report.
The education of refugee children
For the schooling of their children, Ukrainian families arriving in Toulouse must get in touch with the town hall which proceeds to the registrations in the schools. “As far as possible, children will be welcomed in educational units for incoming allophone students (UPE2A), indicates the prefecture of Haute-Garonne in connection with the national education services. These units allow the students concerned to be enrolled in an ordinary class while benefiting from reinforced teaching in French as a second language, according to their needs and their linguistic and language skills. In addition, “registration in the canteen when it exists and in extracurricular care is a right as soon as the child (Ukrainian minor) is registered in school”. Finally, within each academy, a “Ukrainian cell” coordinates the action of the National Education services.