Housing fund created for refugees could help other Canadians
Search for affordable housing for refugees highlights the need for other Canadians
- 'Colossal effort' underway to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by year's end
- Settlement agency braces for arrival of refugees
- Suppliers for Syrian refugee welcome kits kept secret for security reasons
Earlier this week federal Immigration Minister John McCallum met with some Canadian business leaders and launched a $50 million dollar challenge to the private sector to raise money for affordable housing for Syrian refugees.
Queen's University public policy professor Naomi Alboim, an executive at Lifeline Syria who has been involved in immigration for decades, says the initiative is innovative.
She also thinks it could help others in this country who are trying to secure proper housing.
"If we put in the infrastructure that's necessary, the community organizations that are necessary, I think there'll be the basis for potentially expanding to many other groups beyond this population of Syrian refugees," said Alboim.
Community Foundations of Canada to manage fund
CN donated $5 million that McCallum, a former bank economist, said will provide seed money for a housing fund to be managed by Community Foundations of Canada. Manulife has also committed $500,000 to the fund.
"These efforts to raise money on the part of the business sector are at arms length from government, so it's up to them to raise the money and direct it to housing support and to other things," said McCallum, who got emotional when talking about his pitch to former private sector colleagues.
Ian Bird, the president of the Community Foundations of Canada, said his group will help businesses figure out where they can make the biggest difference.
"We've had companies identify ways they can contribute on skills training to help newcomers — either fine tune their skills or become accredited to enter into jobs where we currently have labour shortages."
A foundation spokesperson said the group recognizes the challenges when it comes to low income housing and the idea of helping beyond the Syrian refugees will certainly be on their minds.
Housing challenges will identify gaps across country
Speaking from her experience with the Indo-Chinese migration in the late 1970s, Alboim said there will be a legacy from this influx of refugees and the support currently being shown, whether it's planned in advance or not.
"They became general advocates, well beyond the refugees they sponsored, because they became aware of gaps and challenges that they personally had not experienced," said Alboim.
"I think we'll have over time a significant group of people saying affordable housing really is a problem in this country and we have to do something," she said.