They ask for warm clothes and diapers: how Ukrainians live and survive below the poverty line

This brought the country back to the figures of 2001. People who have been forced to leave their homes and due to life circumstances cannot take up additional income or go to work at all have been hit hardest. Among them are parents raising children alone, pensioners with disabilities and families with many children. In the context of the war, social assistance has become critical for many of them, but remains insufficient and sometimes even inaccessible.

In this article we will tell you what difficulties socially vulnerable Ukrainians have to face, what are the difficulties of their support, and whether there are prerequisites for improving the situation.

In what conditions the displaced people with children found themselves. The story of a single mother from Bakhmut

According to sociologists, one of the most disadvantaged categories of Ukrainians are families raising two or more children. It is especially difficult if one parent, who is also a migrant, is in charge of upbringing. As an example, let us tell the story of Anna Gurevich, a resident of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, who raises her 6-year-old daughter Sofia alone. We learnt about this family on one of the social Internet platforms, where Anna asked indifferent citizens to help with warm clothes for her daughter, as she had no money to buy them.

The young mother said that for several months she and her daughter have been living in Kharkiv, where they rent a one-room flat. The entire family income is made up of payments, which the state accrues to all internally displaced persons: 2 thousand UAH per adult and 3 thousand UAH per child. Some funds are sent to Anna by her parents, who are pensioners. Another 6.6 thousand UAH as a one-time assistance to the family was provided by the charity organisation "Caritas". After paying rent and utilities, the family has little money left for food. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Anna's daughter suffers from a rare disease - gluten intolerance - and therefore needs special nutrition, which is not cheap.

Anna says that after leaving Bakhmut, she and her daughter lived in a village in Donetsk region, where local residents kindly provided them with free accommodation in a private house. The problem was that cellular and internet connections in the village worked intermittently, which did not allow Sofiyka, who started first grade this year, to study remotely. In addition, there were practically no children in the village, so the child had no opportunity to communicate with peers and develop.

In Kharkiv, the girl is studying remotely in the Bakhmut school. Almost all Kharkiv schoolchildren are also on online learning.

Moving to Kharkiv, Anna expected to get a job. But she has not yet managed to find a job in her profession - as an academic vocal teacher.

A job would be a great support for me, not only financially, but also morally. But I never thought that I would have difficulties with employment. I have more than 10 years of experience, and in all the years I have never failed to find a job in my speciality. I tried to work as a home tutor, but after two weeks of work I wasn't paid anything, so I don't want to take any more risks. I can't go to work in a shop now either, as I can't leave my daughter for a long time," Anna said.

At the moment the young mum is busy looking for warm outerwear for the child, as well as blankets. She says that there is a problem with this now, as there are few charitable organisations that could help.

Our support centre "With Bakhmut in my heart" promised to help us. I applied to a couple of other organisations. So we will still find something. But, to be honest, I try not to bother with requests. If I turn to them, they will look at me askew and say - survive as you want. It's happened before. The impression is that people are tired of war and migrants. And this attitude is unpleasant, because it is not our fault that we are in this situation," Anna concluded.

Not everyone gets the benefits they are entitled to. Stories of pensioners from Toretsk and Mykolaiv

Life is not easy for many pensioners, especially those with disabilities. Pension payments for the elderly are quite modest, and most of the money is spent on medicines. Vera Kavetskaya, 62, a resident of the frontline town of Toretsk, Donetsk Oblast, told Socialportal that hospitalisation has become a heavy financial burden for her family.

Vera Vasilievna is a third-group invalid. Recently, her health has deteriorated dramatically and she needed to be hospitalised. Since the hospital in Toretsk was destroyed due to shelling, and the nearest towns of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk do not have an MRI machine capable of diagnosing people weighing more than 100kg, the woman had to go to a hospital in Dnipro.

The pensioner issued the status of an immigrant, expecting that this would help save money on medicines during her stay in hospital, as reported on the website of the Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine. However, all treatment from medicines to procedures turned out to be paid for. The hospital was able to provide only one painkiller injection and a pack of ibuprofen for free. As a result, Vera Kavetska spent UAH 20,000 for a fortnight in hospital - all her and her husband's savings.

Our other interlocutor, Mykolaiv resident Valentina Misyuga, a disabled person of the first group, told Socialportal that she and her husband receive UAH 4.6 thousand of pension. At the same time, she spends UAH 700 per month just for one type of pills. It should be noted that people who are in difficult life circumstances are supported by international charitable organisations. But there are situations when those to whom this help is most important do not receive it in the end. This is what happened to Valentina Nikolaevna. In June last year the couple left an application on the humanitarian platform "єDopomohora" to receive assistance from UNHCR - 6.6 thousand hryvnias with payment within three months. But in the end they did not receive anything.

I called the Ministry of Social Policy, where they told me to monitor the status of the application. And the status of the application is "registered". All our acquaintances have long received the funds, but we have not. Such injustice is very upsetting," said the pensioner.

The social portal sent a corresponding request to the Ministry of Social Policy. We were told that the Department of Digital Transformation, Information Technology and Cybersecurity of the Ministry of Social Policy does not have any cases of incorrect decision-making on financial assistance. As for the situation with Valetina Misyuga, her application is registered, but the decision on the allocation of funds is made by an international organisation, the ministry has nothing to do with it.

When a child with a disability is brought up. The story of a family from Kharkiv

It is not easy for families with children with disabilities. Although financial support for a seriously ill child is relatively good, all the funds received end up being spent on treatment: buying medicines, paying for the services of specialised specialists (for example, a masseur), etc. At the same time, such an acute issue as rehabilitation is not fully addressed. Often the rehabilitation programme is not funded regularly, and as a result parents have to pay for the procedures out of their own pockets, because if the child does not undergo rehabilitation in time, the whole point of treatment is lost.

Inna Kiktyova, a resident of Kharkiv, told our journalists that the rehabilitation that her younger 6-year-old son Volodya, who has cerebral palsy (the child cannot move independently), undergoes is of little help, as the number of children in the rehabilitation centre is large, and as a result little time is given to each child.

Therefore, the mother had to use the services of private medical centres. Before the war, the family could afford it, as Inna's husband was engaged in wholesale sales of fruit and vegetables at the First Kilometre market, and was earning well. But after the market was shelled, the father lost his business and the family's income dropped dramatically. Today Inna does not even have enough money for nappies for her son, forcing her to publicly ask for help.

It should be noted that the issue of providing children with disabilities with free nappies is regulated by the Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1301 (point 3) of 03.12.2009. The programme is financed from the state and local budgets. It is noteworthy that none of those who were assigned ex officio to support 6-year-old Volodya Kiktyova informed his parents about the programme. Inna Kiktyova learnt about it from our journalists, after which she asked her attending doctor about it. Only after that the doctor suggested the mother to write an application for nappies, which are promised to be handed over in the next quarter.

However, despite the difficulties, the young mother believes that the situation in her family is not as bad as in other citizens.

I don't complain about life. I see how others live and realise that things are not so bad for us. Everything is learnt in comparison. Only the thought of the future worries me.... There are no plans, we live one day at a time. I don't know what will happen next," she told our publication.

Denied low-income status because of 37 hryvnias. The story of a large family from Kiev

Elena Antonenko, a Kiev resident, who together with her husband is raising eight children (all related), has long been accustomed to rely only on her own strength.

The woman dreamed of having a large family even before she got married, so she was prepared for the difficulties ahead. Yelena told Socialportal that the family's life did not change much with the outbreak of the war - the same problems with the lack of food, clothes and the need to buy medicine. However, the difficulties in finding a job became even more acute.

Until recently, Elena's husband worked as a teacher. But due to the fact that the place of work was in the city of Vishnevoye (the family lives in the capital's Vynohradar microdistrict), the daily commute cost 100 UAH. Therefore, the man decided to quit his job, but there were difficulties in finding a new job and now the father is unemployed. Elena, who works as a cleaner, brings income to the family. In addition to the mother's salary, the family receives monthly from the state 2.1 thousand hryvnias for each third and subsequent child when they reach the age of six, as well as 860 hryvnias for a one and a half year old daughter - until the age of three. By the way, the Antonenko family does not fall under the status of a low-income family. As Elena told us, when they applied, it turned out that the family's income was 37 UAH more than it was supposed to be when applying for the status. But it was when the husband had a job.

The family is also entitled to a 50% discount on utility bills, which was automatically calculated. However, because of the next reform, the package of documents must be submitted again, which for a number of reasons is not so easy. As a result, the family has been paying the full cost of "utilities" all summer and up to today.

The large family is helped by charitable organisations, which give food packages, nappies, clothes for children, shoes. Some of these items are also provided by social services, but in much smaller amounts. At the same time, according to Olena, social services widely provide children with free vouchers, mainly to the Carpathians. However, the woman and her husband have never used such vouchers for a year and a half, as they are afraid to take risks in the conditions of war.

If they had provided support with free clubs for children at their place of residence, it would have been a more significant support for us. However, there is a possibility to enrol a child in free classes, but you have to travel far to do it. The clubs that are close to home are paid, we don't have money for them," Elena said.

How Ukraine plans to reform the social support system

All those with whom we spoke, although telling about their difficulties, objectively understood that in the current reality they can hardly count on more substantial support. However, without a well-designed support system, the scale of poverty in the country becomes catastrophic.

To be fair, it should be noted that in the conditions of full-scale military operations, the state, not without the help of the international community, still manages to finance social programmes at an acceptable level. In the draft budget for 2024 it is even planned to allocate 24 billion more (+5.6%) for social protection than in the current year. And the minimum wage will increase from UAH 6.7 thousand to UAH 7.1 thousand from January next year, and from April - to UAH 8 thousand. And this is despite the fact that a significant part of the budget goes to military expenditures.

When asked by the Ministry of Social Policy whether there are plans to increase support for large families next year, Socialportal was told that a set of reforms in the social sphere has been launched to simplify and unify assistance, as well as to strengthen targeting.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection claims that this will help the most vulnerable categories of citizens to get out of difficult life circumstances. However, it is not clear what the specific actions of the ministry will be.

However, it is worth paying attention to the statements and actions of the authorities regarding the social sphere. For example, Minister of Social Policy Oksana Zholnovych said that Ukrainians should be taken "out of the comfort zone" by breaking everything that is social today. Zholnovych also criticised the idea of introducing funded pensions for... insufficient radicality. In her opinion, at least 8-10 per cent of earnings should be contributed to the funded pension system, which a number of experts consider ineffective in the Ukrainian reality, and the IMF has recommended postponing its introduction until the war is over, since the 3 per cent envisaged by the draft law is not enough.

Also alarming are the recent innovations regarding the category of people who have been disabled due to industrial injuries and who have been deprived of a significant part of assistance since the beginning of this year.

Or the adoption of Law 2136-IX "On the organisation of labour relations under martial law", which allowed employers to reduce a number of social guarantees for employees. It seems that the state is actively trying to shed some of its social functions.

And this is despite the fact that reality requires a different approach, given the millions of internally displaced persons, support for military families, finding funds to rebuild destroyed housing, and so on. All of this requires enormous resources. In these conditions, one can increasingly hear demands for drastic measures to address the shortage of funds: from the introduction of progressive taxation for the richest, confiscation of surplus property of oligarchic capital, to cancellation of Ukraine's foreign debt. Before the war, such proposals seemed impossible, but hard times dictate unconventional solutions. Some experts even believe that in order to maintain an adequate level of social protection, it is necessary to determine the future course of Ukraine's development.

Andriy Eremenko, a sociologist and founder of the research company Active Group, sees two ways of development: the Scandinavian and American models. In Scandinavian countries, he notes, the emphasis is on high taxes, which allow to find funds for social assistance. At the same time, in a number of North American states, on the contrary, the bias is in favour of business development - the locomotive of the economy, which is provided with attractive tax conditions. But in this case social security suffers in the country. There are no such camps for the homeless as in the USA in the Nordic countries.

Therefore, we must determine through elections, referendums and other electoral actions which development of Ukraine is preferable. Reduce taxes so that tomorrow, despite the war, jobs would be created. And then migrant workers will come to our country. But in this case we will have little money for social security. If we pay more attention to the social sphere, then there will be few new jobs," he told our publication.

Of course, says the sociologist, in the first stage, the reconstruction funds promised by the international community will be a good addition to development. Another accelerator will be the increase in the efficiency of state structures through digitalisation, which is widely implemented in Ukraine today. However, these are efforts that only give a boost to development.

Society needs to find its balance between conventional socialism and conventional "anarcho-capitalism" - as two extremes. And it will be up to the voters to do it," summarised Andriy Eremenko.