Halved: State aid payments to some IDPs stopped

The state is suspending housing payments for a specific category of internally displaced persons, Deputy Minister of Social Policy Darya Marchak said in a comment to Radio Svoboda.

She noted that the reduction in financial support is due to new requirements for payments for internally displaced citizens. Now the number of beneficiaries has decreased – from 2.6 million to 1.2 million. The state provides 2,000 hryvnias per month for adults and 3,000 hryvnias for children or people with disabilities.

According to Marchak, the government has revised the criteria for assisting not only to reduce costs, but also to eliminate the wrong incentives that create reluctance of families to return to independent living. She emphasized the importance of parents’ employment and children’s attendance at educational institutions in their new place of residence.

In the future, only the most vulnerable segments of the population, such as pensioners, people with disabilities, single mothers, and families who, for objective reasons, cannot place their children in schools or kindergartens, will receive financial assistance.

Continuing, Darya Marchak emphasized that internally displaced persons can still receive other types of assistance. These include housing subsidies, cash assistance under the “municipal nanny” program (up to 24 thousand hryvnias for caring for three children), compensation for care services for people with disabilities (up to 16 thousand hryvnias), as well as psychological and psychosocial support.