The government allows for the use of private homes and any relatives in Norway as part of the preparedness to receive refugees from Ukraine.
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This is confirmed by Minister of Justice and Emergency Management Emilie Enger Mehl (Sp) to VG.
– We are now looking at a solution to be able to use private homes as part of the emergency preparedness – and let refugees live close to family and friends, she begins.
– We will look at how we can create a facility that allows private homes to be a place of residence for refugees with some benefits for living there. But we must also frame it so that there is no arrangement that means that we do not have an overview of who is in this country, Mehl says to VG.
The desire of the municipalities
She noticed that the main board of the Municipal Sector’s interest organization (KS) Monday decided to ask for a change in regulations so that Ukrainian asylum seekers can stay with relatives in Norway without losing the right to financial assistance.
The Minister of Justice reminds that the scheme of asylum reception has clear intentions, but that the government is open to looking at other solutions as well.
–– There are good reasons in a normal situation for asylum seekers to be in reception in this phase. This is because it should be possible to register them, map out who they are and find a suitable municipality of residence, says Mehl.
She adds:
– If we are to open up for a scheme where you are an asylum seeker and can live privately, then we must be sure that we do not delimit that scheme so that people do not get outside the system. We have to catch people to be able to follow them up, she nuances.
Will not lose track
She reminds that even though there is an opening for refugees to be housed privately, an overview of where the refugees live is still important.
– And we must avoid that the municipalities do not receive large bills related to this, says the Minister of Justice.
She thus follows up on what Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Labor Party) suggested when he met newly arrived Ukrainian refugees in Porsgrunn on Tuesday.
When asked by VG if he would encourage people with space and opportunity to receive refugees privately, Støre answered:
– Yes I do. Then you can contact the municipality that has contact with the UDI. We can not bet that there are reception places that can solve this, the Prime Minister replied.
–Will not enter numbers
Minister of Justice Emilie Enger Mehl does not yet have a number of refugees that Norway has taken into account to be able to receive:
– It is not correct yet to quantify the number who will come here. Norway is prepared to help those who seek refuge with us. We see that the arrival to Norway is not very large yet, but it can increase a lot in the future, and it can happen quickly, she answers VG’s question about the number Norway takes into account.
Mehl, who himself has traveled in Ukraine as an election observer for several weeks during the 2019 election, is very grateful for the generosity that Norwegians are now showing towards war-torn Ukrainians.
At the same time, she comes up with a kind of warning:
– We must bear in mind that this can be demanding and a refugee crisis that can reach dimensions we have not seen in recent times. This makes it important to establish systems for this that can be put in place quickly, that are efficient, but that can stand up when everyday life comes. Remember, we are only on day 12 of this war, she recalls.
She observes that some refugees apply to areas where they know someone or have family.
– Some will probably come here because of it. The government is working to meet this in a way that gives us control and takes responsibility for this to work over time.
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