US developer builds homes for displaced Ukrainians, offering hope despite war and crisis

TARASIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — The Russian invasion of Ukraine has displaced millions, scattering families across the country and abroad. For many, heavy fighting in the east means crowded shelters, borrowed beds and fading hope.

About 400 miles west of the front line, however, a privately built settlement near Kyiv offers a rare reprieve: stable housing, personal space and the dignity of a locked door.

This is Hansen Village. Its rows of modular homes provide housing for 2,000 people who are mostly displaced from occupied territories. Children ride bikes along paved lanes, passing amenities like a swimming pool, basketball court, health clinic and school.

The village is the creation of Dell Loy Hansen, a Utah real estate developer who has spent over $140 million building and repairing homes across Ukraine since 2022.

At 72, he’s eager to do more.

Hansen’s arrival in Ukraine followed a public reckoning. In 2020, he sold his Major League Soccer team, Real Salt Lake, after reports that he made racist comments. He denied the allegations in an interview with The Associated Press but said the experience ultimately gave him a new mission.

“I went through something painful, but it gave me humility,” he said. “That humility led me to Ukraine.”

Seeing people lose everything, Hansen said he felt compelled to act. “This isn’t charity to me, it’s responsibility,” he said. “If you can build, then build. Don’t just watch.”

Hansen now oversees more than a dozen projects in Ukraine: expanding Hansen Village, providing cash and other assistance to elderly people and families, and supporting a prosthetics clinic.

He’s planning a cemetery to honor displaced people, and a not-for-profit affordable housing program designed to be scaled up nationally.

Ukraine’s housing crisis is staggering. Nearly one in three citizens have fled their homes, including 4.5 million registered as internally displaced.

Around the eastern city of Dnipro, volunteers convert old buildings into shelters as evacuees arrive daily from the war-torn Donbas region. One site — a crumbling Soviet-era dorm — now houses 149 elderly residents, mostly in their seventies and eighties.

Funding comes from a patchwork of donations: foreign aid, local charities and individual contributions including cash, volunteer labor or old appliances and boxes of food, all put together to meet urgent needs.

“I call it begging: knocking on every door, and explaining why each small thing is necessary,” said Veronika Chumak, who runs the center. “But we keep going. Our mission is to restore people’s sense of life.”

Valentina Khusak, 86, was evacuated by charity volunteers from Myrnohrad, a coal-mining town, after Russian shelling cut off water and power. She lost her husband and son before the war.

“Maybe we’ll return home, maybe not,” she said. “What matters is that places like this exist — where the old and lonely are treated with warmth and respect.”