We undertake checks of accommodation for all Homes for Ukraine guests and will contact sponsors to arrange for a property check to be carried out. This will usually only happen once you have been matched with guests and advised us of a possible arrival date.

The accommodation will need to:

• be safe and free from serious health and safety hazards
• have a working fire alarm, a carbon monoxide alarm in any room containing a solid fuel burning appliance, and a safe gas supply
• provide access to kitchen and bathroom space for guests
• a suitable size for the number of guests you wish to accommodate.
• the law states that two people should not be in one room unless they are:
  • adult cohabiting partners
  • a parent and child
  • two siblings of the same gender if aged over 10
  • two siblings regardless of gender if aged under 10
  • individuals who didn’t previously know each other should not be given the same room

If you as a sponsor are a tenant living in social or private rental accommodation, you should seek permission from your landlord about hosting guests through the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

We will be required to undertake basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks for all adults in the sponsor household.

In cases where the incoming arrivals include children and/or vulnerable adults, an enhanced DBS with barred lists check will be required on all adults in the sponsor household.

Welfare checks will also be arranged when your guests have arrived to check on their welfare and how they are settling into life in the city. 

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is usually used to help organisations make safer decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups including children. As part of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, the Disclosure and Barring Service is being used to help safeguard individuals and families coming from Ukraine to the UK.

There are two types of DBS check:

• a basic DBS
• an enhanced DBS

A basic DBS check contains details of convictions and conditional cautions considered to be ‘unspent’ under the terms of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Under the Act, eligible convictions or cautions become ‘spent’ after a specified period of time known as the ‘rehabilitation period’, the length of which varies depending on how the individual was dealt with.

An enhanced DBS check contains all of the information of a basic DBS, as well as whether someone is listed on the Children's Barred List or Adult First list.

Everyone aged 16 and over who is a member of your household but not your guests will need at least a basic DBS check to sponsor guests who are adults. If your household is sponsoring children, or any vulnerable adults, you will all be asked to complete an enhanced DBS check instead of a basic DBS check.

Please request a basic DBS check for each person aged 16 and over in your household. At the end of the form, please select the option for someone else to pay. You will receive an email to say your DBS application has been completed which will include a link to complete the payment process.

Please forward this email through to ukraine@cambridge.gov.uk, including your name and address in the subject heading of the email. Once we have received the email, we can process the payment.

If you are sponsoring a child, or any vulnerable adults, you will be contacted by someone from the council to arrange an appointment to complete your enhanced DBS check.

Everyone in your household over the age of 16 will need to visit our customer services centre in central Cambridge (Mandela House, 4 Regent St, Cambridge, CB2 1BY), bringing two forms of photographic ID and proof of your address.

All people aged 16 and over in your household will receive a copy of their individual DBS certificate in the post. These will need to be shared with us for us to verify the DBS.

Please send a scanned copy or photograph of each DBS to us by emailing ukraine@cambridge.gov.uk. In the subject heading of the email please give your name and address, this will help us to track the checks we have completed for your household.

Please note that the delay in providing us with your DBS certificate will delay the process of paying your £350 sponsor ‘thank you’ payment (if you opt into this).

If the DBSs for any of the people in your household come back with a trace (a conviction), we will complete a risk assessment to see whether it is suitable for your household to remain a sponsor. This may include us contacting Cambridgeshire County Council to request safeguarding checks.

Sponsors through the Homes for Ukraine scheme are entitled to a £350 ‘thank you payment’ from the Government, to be paid monthly (in arrears) for each month that a guest is staying in your accommodation, for the first year. Once guests have been living in the UK for a year (through the Homes for Ukraine scheme), the Government will increase the payment to £500 per month, for the second year.

Cambridge City Council has decided to pay the £150 difference, to match this £500 Government payment, for hosts whose guests have not yet been in Cambridge for a full year.

If you are a close family member of the guest you are hosting, you will not be eligible for the Thank You payments. A close family member includes:

• a spouse, civil partner, or unmarried partner
• a parent, parent-in-law or grandparent
• a son or daughter, son or daughter-in-law, or a step-son or step-daughter
• a brother or sister
• a spouse, civil partner, or unmarried partner of any of those listed
• an aunt or uncle, for those hosting children under the age of 18 who traveled to the UK alone

Once hosts are matched with a guest, we will send further information about the process to opt in for these payments as part of your welcome pack.

Please note that payments will only be made once the household’s DBS and accommodation checks have been completed, and once we have verified the information provided.

Once we start to make your payments, we will continue to process payments on the last Wednesday of each month, to be received in your chosen bank account.

There may be some cases where the sponsor/guest relationship breaks down and the guest is homeless or at risk of homelessness. Please contact us if you need to end the sponsorship arrangement early. Our statutory homelessness duties will apply in this instance. Where possible a rematch may be explored.

Please contact us and we will explore what support could be put in place.

If you do not have food or other essentials provided and do not have access to money to buy what you need, check the available community food hubs, foodbanks and other food resources available in Cambridge.

The No Accommodation Network (Naccom) have produced guidance, for hosts, prospective hosts, and any organisations working to make hosting arrangements a success.

• Naccom: Hosting resources

Anyone in Cambridge who needs housing advice can contact our team, including guests from Ukraine.

• complete our short housing advice online form
• call: 01223 457000 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm) or 0330 053 8109 (out of hours emergencies)
• email: housing.advice@cambridge.gov.uk

If guests will struggle to fund their accommodation, they should approach our Housing Advice Service using the contact information above to enquire about available support - for instance applicants may be eligible for help towards rental deposits and their first month’s rent.

• if Homes for Ukraine guests live with their host in the same property, this will not impact hosts’ Council Tax liability and hosts would be expected to pay Council Tax as normal
• Homes for Ukraine guests who live in a separate property to their hosts will be liable to pay Council Tax and this will be at a 50% discounted rate
• if you are on a low income, you can apply for a Council Tax Reduction through the usual process