Ministry for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons: Strengthening international support to ensure continuity of eVidnovlennia and scale up housing restoration

Ensuring the uninterrupted operation of programmes that help people repair damaged homes and buy new ones to replace those that were destroyed is one of the key priorities of the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons housing policy.

This issue was discussed at a coordination meeting between Minister for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Vitalii Bezhin and the Ministry's team, and more than 40 representatives of embassies, international organizations, and financial institutions.

The Ministry presented partners with specific needs under the housing programmes and discussed additional support and opportunities to scale up the mechanisms already in place. The programmes are already running and have the partners' trust. The next step is to increase resources so that assistance reaches more people.

"It is important for us to build a stable system for financing housing assistance. This will allow us to keep the programmes running without interruption, restore damaged housing faster, and increase the number of people who can receive new housing to replace what was destroyed," said Vitalii Bezhin.

More opportunities for comprehensive housing recovery. Additional funding of EUR 112.5 million under the EU/UIF (Ukraine Investment Framework) guarantee mechanism is awaiting final approval from the World Bank. The funds will be used for payments to repair damaged houses and apartments under eVidnovlennia.

Compensation for destroyed housing. Under the HOME project, supported by the Council of Europe Development Bank, EUR 100 million will make it possible to fund about 3,600 housing certificates this year. At the same time, more than 60,000 certificates still need funding, so it is critical to attract additional resources to scale up the programme. Separately, the project provides for more than EUR 11 million in technical assistance to strengthen the compensation system.

Another key area that needs support is housing assistance for IDPs from the temporarily occupied territories. EUR 80 million is expected to fund more than 2,000 housing vouchers by the end of 2026. At the same time, about 36,804 vouchers still need funding. These are applications approved by local commissions. At the first stage, the programme covers internally displaced persons who left their homes in the temporarily occupied territories and have the status of a combatant or a person with a disability as a result of the war. The programme needs additional resources and partner support to expand housing assistance for internally displaced persons.