REFUGEES MAY GET INTERIM HOUSING

OTTAWA— Thousands of Syrian refugees expected in Canada in the coming days could spend up to two weeks in temporary accommodations, including military bases, before being able to settle into more permanent homes. Those conditions will still be better than the conditions people have left behind in Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey, where nearly all of the Syrian refugees coming to Canada are living, said Immigration Minister John McCallum. “I don’t think the need to spend one or two weeks in interim accommodation will be a devastating experience for them, given what they have come from,” McCallum told a news conference Wednesday. “That being said, we’ll attempt to make that interim process as quick as possible.” When the current resettlement program was rolled out in November, the government said incoming refugees would spend a couple of nights in hotels near the airport before transiting on to their final destinations. For those with private sponsors, there would likely be homes ready, but what would happen with government-assisted refugees — those whose costs are covered entirely by government — was always a question mark. Ordinarily, those refugees are welcomed by settlement agencies that run temporary housing facilities, and they stay there for a few weeks before a permanent home is found. But those organizations always had concerns that the sheer volume of Syrians would overwhelm those facilities, a fear that’s now become a reality as the Liberals work toward bringing 25,000 people to Canada by the end of February. The groups are providing daily feedback to the government on the number of beds they have available, but at least three military bases are expected to be mobilized in the coming weeks to help house thousands of people.