“I simply cannot live like a guest forever…”: the limits of solidarity in the private hosting of Ukrainian refugees in Berlin

Abstract Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, over 8 million Ukrainians have fled the country, with more than 1.2 million receiving temporary protection in Germany. While formal governance frameworks have shaped the arrival and settlement process, solidarity-based initiatives, particularly homestay arrangements, have played a central role in accommodating refugees. In Berlin, as in many other cities, private citizens offering their homes became a core part of the arrival infrastructure. However, the protracted nature of the war and the uncertain timeline for return have exposed the fragility of this model. Despite state compensation schemes for hosts, cases emerged of refugees being asked to leave, prompting some to return to Ukraine prematurely. This paper aims to critically examine the precarity of solidarity-based private hosting, showing how such arrangements generate tensions rooted in everyday power dynamics, emotional strain, and unequal dependencies. These experiences, shaped by what has been termed “compassion fatigue”, raise questions about the sustainability of private hosting as a long-term policy response. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research with Ukrainian refugee women in Berlin, the paper investigates how housing precarity influences their settlement trajectories, integration prospects, and decisions about return. It highlights the intersection of private housing arrangements with Berlin’s broader housing crisis and critiques the ambiguities within German social policy frameworks for temporary protection holders. The paper contributes to wider debates on the governance of arrival, the limits of solidarity, and the structural conditions shaping refugee accommodation in urban contexts marked by crisis and austerity.