Home for youth refugees provides hope
House for unaccompanied claimants needs more space for those who ‘lost everything’
They are looking for peace, and this week on a quiet, residential street in west Toronto, they will seek sanctuary.
Five unaccompanied youth refugees will move into a cosy four-bedroom home, operated by Matthew House, a non-profit charity that helps refugees with their settlement needs.
“These kids don’t just need a bed or a room,” said Karen Francis, executive director of Matthew House. “They need a community, they need a family, they need a place to belong.”
The long-term youth home is the second residence of its kind. The organization’s first residence for refugee youth houses seven.
The new house was purchased by C3 Toronto, also known at Christian City Church International, and the residents will live rent-free, with utilities and maintenance covered by the church.
“We really do believe in the vision of helping people . . . that are seeking asylum in Canada,” said Sam Picken, pastor at C3. “We really believe that that’s something significant that our nation and our borders offer. If we can be a part of the solution, we will.”
The residents are refugee claimants, which means they make their refugee claims from inside Canada, rather than being processed before travelling like government-assisted or privately sponsored refugees.
Francis said the kids moving into the home have “lost everything.”
“They’ve lost their mum, their dad, brothers, sisters, the security of being at home, in their country, everything they know culturally,” she said. “So they’re grieving. There’s a real loss there.”
The five residents, ages 17 to 20, will eat in the newly renovated kitchen and sleep in their own beds, with the guidance of live-in “house parents.”
Through the long-term youth program, they’ll get help navigating the refugee determination system. They’ll get involved with ESL programs and get help enrolling in school.
But they’ll also celebrate birthdays and graduations, go to camp in the summertime and find a gift under the Christmas tree.
There has been an influx of unaccompanied youth refugees to Toronto over the last few years — an already vulnerable population, the already harrowing situation made worse by their youth.
“This house is great,” Francis said. “We’re thrilled about this house. But the need is greater.”
Francis said that in 2017 she has been “really surprised” at the number of unaccompanied minors Matthew House has received.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada data shows that asylum claimants in Ontario have increased since 2015.
Ontario had just over 11,000 asylum claimants in 2015. That jumped to about 15,300 in 2016. As of October 2017, there have been nearly 16,500 asylum claimants in Ontario this year.
Francis calls youth the most vulnerable group within the refugee claimant community “because they’re completely alone and 16, 17 years old.”
“I think it’s hard for us to fully comprehend, from a North American context, how these kids could, at16 or 17 years old, find themselves on the refugee highway in search of a safe place to call home.”