Unsplash
Ukrainians fleeing a Russian invasion have been welcomed to Canada, with many families opening their doors to newcomers for a short stay.
But as the war drags on, the need for longer-term housing arrangements has become an issue.
One young Ukrainian woman is overwhelmingly relieved to be safely in Oakville with her two children. The kids are enrolled in local schools, while she works more than 40 hours a week at two jobs.
She is billeted with a local family who is helping her with childcare, but her housing situation was never intended to be permanent. Her hosts have another Ukrainian family arriving shortly, and she has two weeks to find a place to live in a region beset with a challenging shortage of affordable housing.
That was the story that Oakville councillor Jeff Knoll heard last week when he met with members of Oakville’s Ukrainian community at St. Joseph’s church.
“I was overwhelmed by the stories that I was hearing,” Knoll told his fellow Halton regional councillors during their May 25 meeting.
“And more than anything, I was overwhelmed by the uncertainty as to their futures. Not just the uncertainty as to whether they can ever return to their native land but also the uncertainty as to what’s next for them here in Canada.”
For some Ukrainians who fled to Canada, promised billets didn’t materialize or were inappropriate. In other cases, local families have had to limit the length of time they could host visitors.
And while those escaping the violence of war are often referred to as refugees, the Canadian government instead calls them visitors.
Thanks to that classification, many housing supports and other resources are not available to the approximately 32,000 Ukrainians who have come to Canada under the Canada-Ukraine Emergency Travel Authorization (CUETA) program.
Federal government support for the new arrivals has been limited to two weeks of hotel accommodation and six weeks of limited income support. This week, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced that displaced Ukrainians are now eligible to receive a new, one-time cash payment of $3,000 to help them transition to life in Canada.
But with Knoll’s urging, Halton politicians have unanimously approved the use of social service funds to create a transitional housing program for Ukrainians.
The program, administered by local settlement support agencies, is intended to be similar to one developed in 2016 to provide emergency housing support for Syrian refugees arriving in Halton.
Regional staff have been authorized to launch the program and bring back full details to regional council’s June meeting.
