Metro Vancouverites are being asked to open their hearts – and homes – as the region prepares to welcome the biggest influx of refugees in history.
As many as 3,000 Syrian men, woman and children granted asylum in Canada are expected to settle in the area by the end of the year.
“We're talking about a 360 per cent increase in a matter of weeks,” Chris Friesen of Immigration Services Society of B.C. said.
The unprecedented arrival is being accompanied by an unprecedented appeal for help.
The society is appealing to anyone who can temporarily house Syrian refugees to sign up on its website.
“We need help. And that means families to look at their own home perhaps they have space in their own home, their basement, a room in their house,” Friesen said.
Approved applicants will receive the shelter portion of the refugees’ federal settlement income cheque.
Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart is expecting that his city will step up to help, especially because his suburban city has a personal connection to the refugee crisis.
The aunt of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy whose body washed up on a Turkish beach, lives in the city.
“It’s hard not to feel a connection,” Stewart said. .
“There's no question that little boy touched the world and certainly touched Coquitlam.”
Friesen says many of the refugees need psychological counselling and help learning English, but the urgent need is housing.
