Hundreds of Britons have offered to host Afghan refugees in their homes since the UK government started evacuation flights after the fall of Kabul.

In August, 998 people have signed up to be hosts with Rooms for Refugees, a Glasgow-based community housing network which has 10,000 hosts on its books across the UK. Another 824 people have offered up their spare rooms to Afghans via another charity, Refugees at Home, in the last two weeks.

Others are expected to come forward to offer their homes on Airbnb after the rental company announced it would help house up to 20,000 Afghan refugees worldwide. Some people have contacted their local authority to offer to host, despite councils saying they do not yet know how many families will be heading their way.

The UK government has said it will “work with stakeholders, including devolved administrations and local councils, to ensure that Afghans who will be rebuilding their lives in the UK have the support they need”.

It should also link up with hosting organisations, said the director of Rooms For Refugees, Robina Qureshi. “It is a shame that the government refuses to recognise [this] vast resource … We literally have thousands of available rooms and properties available for free in every part of the UK that you can imagine.”

She said Room for Refugees had been around for 19 years, dealing with the fallout of the Syrian crisis and placing about 4,000 refugees across the UK in that time.

Uncertainty remains over how and where the estimated 10,000 or more Afghans being resettled in the UK this year will be housed. Those who have arrived in recent weeks have had to spend their first 10 days in quarantine in hotels, where they may stay until more appropriate accommodation can be found.

Sara Nathan, the co-founder and a trustee of Refugees at Home, said the organisation was training four new volunteers to deal with the influx of applications. They are having to turn potential hosts away unless they live in certain cities – London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham and Glasgow – because “there will always be more people wanting placements in those cities than there are willing hosts” said Nathan.

She said there had been “the most incredible variety” of people coming forward. “It includes people who are retired and empty nesters to those with small children; some with several rooms or even a separate flat or house they could offer a family, others saying they will move out of their living room to make space,” she said.

While grateful to everyone who has come forward, Nathan and her colleagues are saying “thanks but no thanks” to people in remote locations “such as halfway up a hill in Snowdonia”. She has also turned down someone who offered to house Afghans in tents on a campsite, she said.

None of the new arrivals have been referred to the charity so far, she said. She contacted the Home Office this week to offer the charity’s service, but has yet to receive a response.

Refugees At Home normally hosts people who have just been granted refugee status but need time to find their feet, plus asylum seekers waiting for their application to be processed, and those who have been refused asylum and are appealing.

The charity has accommodated about 2,500 people since February 2106. Hosting was reduced during the pandemic and none of the 40 guests being hosted are from Afghanistan, said Nathan.

She stressed that hosting was a temporary fix. “We are not suggesting it is a permanent solution to the housing crisis, but it’s infinitely better than staying in a hotel after quarantine – both much more comfortable and also more integrating. Hosts often eat with their guests and very quickly they learn so much about life in the UK,” she said.

Nathan recently welcomed her 26th guest, a young man from Syria.

Qureshi said she was extremely concerned about the Home Office’s use of hotels after the death of a five-year-old boy who fell from a hotel window in Sheffield. More suitable housing, with pastoral support, could be an option through volunteer hosts, she said.