A Ukrainian family hiding in their basement in Kharkiv connected with Andrea Harding through a website called Ukraine Takes Shelter which links refugees with hosts. Harding offered to house them in her holiday home in France, and they left Ukraine, traveling to Budapest and then France. Three days later their home was destroyed by Russian bombs.
Harvard students Avi Schiffmann and Marco Burstein developed the Ukraine Takes Shelter website which they launched on March 2. Fleeing Ukrainian refugees can use the site to immediately connect with hosts offering housing. The site offers translations in 12 languages.
Shiffmann and Burstein note, "This website is a public bulletin. We encourage everyone with spare space to post a listing and to mark their listing as filled once they have successfully taken in refugees."
The site allows hosts to easily describe their offerings, for example: space available, transportation, first-aid, spoken languages, pet restrictions, childcare, disability support, legal support and contact information.
Burstein noted on March 14 that they had reached 10,000 listings.
The logo for Ukraine Takes Shelter combines Ukraine's national flower, the sunflower, with a magnifying glass, representing the search for housing.
