From Emergency to Long-Term Inclusion Needs: Accessing Independent Housing Under the Temporary Protection Framework

The activation of the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) in March 2022 in response to the displacement from Ukraine has been commonly framed as an unprecedented positive move of solidarity among EU Member States, which granted more than 6 million people direct and immediate access to legal status and associated rights in the EU, including access to various forms of accommodation. However, evidence from nearly three years of TPD implementation indicates persisting challenges hindering access to independent housing in particular, which creates additional obstacles to access to other critical interrelated rights, including, among others, healthcare, education and employment, as well as increases vulnerability to homelessness among displaced persons. This study provides an analysis of how access to independent accommodation is further challenged by the short-term nature of the current TPD-based regime, subject to yearly extensions by the EU Member States and currently active until March 2026, which represents a discriminatory factor, disincentivising the private housing owners to conclude rental contracts with the beneficiaries of temporary protection (BTPs). This interdisciplinary analysis draws on legal frameworks and national-level policies, as well as primary qualitative data collected via interviews with BTPs in Italy in the area of their experiences of (non)inclusion through access to housing. Adopting the theoretical lens of ‘organised disintegration’ by Hinger & Schweitzer, this paper investigates the dual effect of the TPD, which on the one hand, assures access to rights since day one, and on the other hand, hinders longer-term inclusion of displaced persons.