Special project. Mayor of Drohobych: 90% of IDPs need permanent housing, because they have nowhere to return

A n exclusive interview of the mayor of Drohobych, Taras Kuchma , within the joint special project of Information Agency Interfax Ukraine and East Europe Foundation “Community Experience” (Dosvid hromad). Its purpose is to show the most outstanding examples of adaptation and integration of internally displaced persons in order to improve the efficiency of local self-government bodies.

Read more about effective interaction with IDPs in the free online course “Adaptation and integration of IDPs: experience and opportunities” on the “Zrozumilo!” online educational platform.

Author: Oleksandr Trokhymchuk

Before the full-scale invasion, over 75,000 people lived in Drohobych. How has the population of your city and community changed in over a year of the full-scale invasion? How many IDPs have you accepted in total?

In the united territorial community, there are 125,000 residents. That is, in besides Drohobych, the community also includes the city of Stebnyk and 32 villages, totalling in approximately 125,000 inhabitants. After 2014, the first significant resettlement took place here. They were Crimean Tatars - about 300-400 people.

Soon after the onset of full-scale aggression... Drohobych is near the border (90 km from the border with Poland - IF-U), and a lot of people went to Poland, leaving from established residences. And it was a great stress not only for them, but also for us, because we could not understand what was happening. A lot of people, especially from Kyiv, from the Kyiv region, Zhytomyr, and Sumy regions, came to us, and we had to help them somehow. And this concerned not only food and the need give them shelter somewhere, but the most important thing was to calm people down psychologically. Because