"After a person has prepared for it, and people have worked with him, and he has a reasonable living benefit of €256 a month, the [refugees] can be evenly split across Latvia," said the Pētersone Godmane.
However, if the benefits are below the living wage, there's a risk that the refugees will exclusively go only to the larger cities where it's easier to find a job. Furthermore, there's a possibility that closed societies will form within the refugees, and the Interior Ministry would not want that scenario to play out.
While Uldis Lielpēters, Deputy State Secretary of the Culture Ministry said that if the state will not do something, those who arrive will seek out the bigger cities where there are more jobs and where their compatriots reside. That's one of the reasons why it's planned to create a network of individual workers who would help the refugees to integrate.
On Monday the coalition agreed to slash the refugee benefits to €139 a month. One survey has suggests that the minimum amount needed for covering daily costs in Latvia is €452 per household member each month.
The Interior Ministry's latest version of the refugee accommodation strategy for 2016 and 2017 said that it would cost Latvia €15.45 million in total, and that €8.93 million of the amount would have to be allocated from the state budget. The government had been expected to review the document on October 27.
