But some critics suspect the law is also linked to increasingly strained relations between Warsaw and Kyiv, which despite their close alliance have clashed over competing farming industries and differing views of Second World War-era history.
Frustration over the long stay of Ukrainian refugees is also beginning to form in Germany, which hosts 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees, and Ireland, which took in 84,000, as Europe’s appetite for long-term support begins to cool.
With Polish taxpayers so far spending an estimated 40bn Polish złoty (£8bn) on support for Ukrainian refugees, the new housing law may seem at first glance to be perfectly reasonable. But it will also affect thousands of vulnerable Ukrainians, such as older people and disabled people, who cannot work or fend for themselves.
“We don’t have a plan and we don’t know what to do,” Mr Kostecki, a 74-year-old former electrician, told The Telegraph from Hotel Mieszko, his refugee accommodation in the Gorzów Wielkopolski.
“Young people, they can work, they can rent an apartment, but not at my age … If we have to move to another country, we will. But I still hope the new regulations will be lifted,” he added.
While Mr Kostecki has a Ukrainian pension of 500 zloty (£100) per month, he says that is not enough to survive in Poland, even when combined with his wife’s 300 zloty (£60) pension. The average cost of rent in Warsaw is £1,000 a month.
Hotel Mieszko houses around 70 pensioners and is run by Les Gondor, a Swedish-Polish philanthropist. He said he was concerned that the new rules would in effect require him to turn the vulnerable and elderly out on to the streets.