"Hansen Village" for Internally Displaced Persons: New Approaches to Providing Supported Living and Residential Care Services

With the onset of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, American businessman and philanthropist Dell Loy Hansen launched a comprehensive initiative to create long-term housing solutions for internally displaced persons (IDPs), older people and persons with disabilities.

This new model is called “Hansen Village”. More than 5,000 people have already found new homes in over 500 modular houses. Among them are elderly IDPs from Donetsk, Luhansk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Many of them lost their families and had to face the challenges of evacuation.

Here, in “Hansen Village”, these people have found not only a new home but also supported living and residential care services based on the “money follows the person” approach. According to this model, service recipients can choose their own provider and pay for services directly from a special account.

All recipients of supported living or residential care services in “Hansen Village” receive not only care and support, but also begin a new life within a community they are building themselves.

The “Hansen Village” settlements are designed as mini-cities with a complete social environment:

• Accessible, safe, and comfortable apartments, each with its own garden.
• Social infrastructure including greenhouses, a woodworking workshop, a library, a beauty salon, a sewing room, a gym, and a cinema.
• Shared transport options such as two- and three-wheeled bicycles and electric scooters for people with limited mobility.
• A supported living facility offering 24-hour medical and social care.

This approach — when a person who has been forced to relocate to new housing is not left alone with their challenges, but instead has the opportunity to remain socially active, work in the garden, attend clubs or other activities — represents a new approach in social policy. It helps restore dignity, rebuild social connections, and provide older people who have experienced the war with a renewed chance for an active life.

One of the residents of “Hansen Village”, Mrs. Liudmyla, fled the war from the fire-engulfed city of Bakhmut.

She spent the final days of the siege in a basement — those days were filled with waiting and hope.

Then, an airstrike changed her life forever. Her grandson had stepped outside to prepare a meal, and in a moment, everything was gone — he was killed.

Another grandson lost his life defending Ukraine as part of the Armed Forces.

Her daughter disappeared without a trace, and Liudmyla still does not know whether she is in captivity or has been killed. In an instant, the war took away everything that had given her reason to live.

When Liudmyla was finally evacuated to “Hansen Village”, she unexpectedly met her old friend — a neighbor with whom she used to enjoy drinking tea in her sunlit kitchen.

Now, just like before, the two friends drink tea together and talk — but now, they are in complete safety and comfort.

You can learn more about this service on the website of the Ministry of Social Policy, Family and Unity of Ukraine.