A woman who fled the war in Ukraine to the UK has described a Conservative proposal to ban foreign nationals from social housing as “devastating”.
The party announced that foreign nationals with settled status, refugee status or certain forms of humanitarian protection would not be eligible for social housing, and existing tenants would be stripped of their homes if it wins the next election.
It is claimed that the proposal would free up more than 228,144 homes for British families who are on long housing waiting lists across the country.
Yuliana Zaichenko, 30, lives in social housing in Newham, east London, after arriving from Ukraine in 2022 on the Ukraine Family Scheme, which gave her the right to live and work in the UK for up to three years.
As someone who has benefited from social housing, she described the plan as “devastating”, saying the scheme was using foreign nationals as scapegoats for the housing shortage.
