1.

”CO-HATY"

(HATY) – in Ukrainian, "HOUSES"

(KOHATY) – in Ukrainian, “TO LOVE”

CO-HATY is a co-housing project for people who lost their homes due to war.

When I think about how CO-HATY started, it still feels unreal. In the beginning, we weren’t an organisation at all — just people who couldn’t sit still while others were losing their homes. We cleaned abandoned buildings, carried furniture, cooked for volunteers, shared whatever we had. No budgets, no plans. Just urgency and this instinct to take care of each other.

What I remember most from those days are the shared meals — sitting on the floor at construction sites, drinking hot tea in cold corridors, making tiny dinners with candles just to bring a bit of warmth back into people’s lives. Those moments built us. That’s how our team appeared, and how the first small communities around the shelters formed. Care wasn’t a strategy — it was survival.

But CO-HATY couldn’t stay a volunteer movement forever. The destruction continued, and people still needed homes. So step by step, we grew up. We learned how to sign agreements with cities, manage projects properly, renovate whole buildings, and plan long-term.

Today, CO-HATY is an affordable housing foundation. We design, rebuild, and manage homes for displaced people. We operate housing facilities for years, not weeks. We work with architects, social workers, municipalities, and international partners.

But at the heart of it, nothing really changed. We still help each other paint walls. Volunteers still show up. We still share food and stories. Only now, behind this warmth, there’s structure and expertise — and a belief that dignified housing isn’t charity. It’s a right we’re building together.

Tanya

2.

Svitlana, Kalush,

I met Svitlana on our first registration day for potential residents of the new building complex of CO-HATY in Kalush. Svitlana told me that she and her sister were from the Liviy Bereh, the left bank of Kherson. This is the side of the city that remains occupied by Russian forces.

Svitlana was dressed in a rather chic grey overcoat and her sister in a thick dark red sweatsuit. They lived in a small apartment in Kalush, together, with one other person. Svitlana told me she worked all her adulthood in one factory in Kherson and retired a decade ago. At first, she made very little as a pensioner, but since additional stipends were added for IDPs, she makes enough to live decently. I asked about her family, if she has any children. Yes, she told me, she has one son, Dmytro, he is in the military but disappeared a year ago. No one knows where he is or what happened to him, she said. Then she looked through her phone for a picture of him. She opened Viber and scrolled back through her chat history. She showed me one picture of her son in military uniform, and then another – a handsome man, probably in his late 30s. I told her how handsome and kind he looked; Pani Svetlana started to cry. I hugged her and told her that I would pray for him. 

We sat together, in silence. Soon she stopped crying, and we began talking about her daily life in Kalush. She was suddenly very optimistic, told me stories about her kind neighbors, and about meeting with her friends every day to weave camouflage nets for the military, her care network. After registering for housing with us today, she would be going there to meet them.

Sofia