"Today is a very nice day to dream again."

Written by Alison Witt, who leads IAFR Canada's Refugee Housing Initiatives. Alison is with Nahid, who is part of the Open Homes Hamilton Community.

Our phone has been ringing off the hook all month.

• The local family shelter wants to know if Open Homes has anyone who can host a family of 4 from Colombia. 
• A Christian shelter in Toronto asks if we can find a spot for a single man from Ethiopia. 
  
• A friend from the Chadian community is desperately looking for a place for a young woman who just arrived from Chad and has nowhere to go. 

And that is just today! 

Our existing shelter systems are just not working. Toronto has the largest homeless shelter system in Canada, yet all of their city run shelters are full to capacity and turning people away in droves. The refugee-specific shelters are full too. It’s the same situation in all the major cities across our country.  It felt like a crisis before the pandemic, but now the cracks that already existed are gaping wider and wider and exposing a system that is completely falling apart.

One of the reasons that shelters are constantly full is that people have nowhere to move to. Have you seen the cost of renting an apartment lately? $1,450 a month. That’s the average cost to rent a 1-bedroom apartment in our midsize city in Ontario. It’s even more in Toronto.  And in Vancouver it is a whopping $2,200! What do you do when you are a newly arrived refugee waiting for a work permit and your entire monthly income is only $733? There are no easy answers.

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Joyful members of a refugee claimant family, former guests of Peoples House in Toronto.

What can we do? Do local churches have anything to offer in response to the current housing crisis?  IAFR Canada thinks so! We dream of seeing churches becoming vitally involved in both initial short-term housing solutions as well as safe, affordable long-term options.

You might be surprised at some of the ways that churches can make a difference. And you don’t have to be a big, wealthy church to get in on the action. There is a whole spectrum of opportunities for churches of all shapes and sizes to make a difference.

When the house next door to a small church in the east end of Hamilton went up for sale they recognized it as a unique opportunity and decided to buy it. After considering numerous options for how to use it, they chose to rent it out to a family from Haiti who was going through the refugee claim process. They rented it to this family at below market rental rates which allowed them to get on their feet while they were working hard to get Canadian credentials and find suitable work.  The church became good neighbours for this family and many dropped by to get to know them. The kids loved running next door to the church for Kids Club and Sunday School. The three or so years that this family lived there gave them the stability they needed to begin their life in Canada.

On a bigger scale, a number of churches in Ontario are partnering with Indwell, a Christian housing charity, to transform part of their properties into affordable housing units. The Baptist church in the neighbourhood where I live recently built a new church worship centre that also includes 45 units of affordable housing. That’s 45 people who now have a beautifully designed, safe, affordable home with built in community support! That’s a pretty big deal

A Peoples House outing with new friends from the church.

Let me share a few ideas to spark your imagination for ways your church might respond in the midst of this housing crisis we find ourselves in-

• Buy or rent a house to provide initial short-term housing for refugee claimants. You can learn more about this model by joining our “Come and See” online visit to People’s House in Toronto on March 1st. 10 am registration   7:30 pm registration
• Rent or buy a house (or perhaps a multi-unit building) to rent to newly arrived refugees at prices they can afford- and be kind landlords!
• Partner with other experienced housing organizations to include affordable housing units on your church property. The partnership between Indwell and James North Baptist Church is a terrific example of this. You can watch a short video and read more about it here.
• Mobilize people in your congregation to host refugee claimants in their home for a few months. You can check out Open Homes Hamilton to learn more about this model
• Work together as a congregation to help people transform their attics or basements into rental units for newcomers at rates they can actually afford.
• Set up a rotating loan fund to help people with hefty rental deposits that can be a huge barrier to being able to secure a long-term rental
• Come together to build a tiny house in someone’s backyard where a newcomer can live. Check out IMBYHOMES for some inspiration.
  

An Open Homes Guest helping a Host family member with her homework.

What innovative responses might God want your church to pursue?

IAFR is committed to helping churches grow in understanding God’s expectations for His people in how we treat the forcibly displaced. We delight in seeing local churches discover  ways to come alongside refugees in ways that uniquely fit who they are as a congregation. So if the Spirit is nudging your church to explore ways that you can be part of making a positive difference, please contact us. We would love to dream, pray, and discern possibilities with you!

Today we helped a young refugee couple and their infant son move into an apartment after a three month stay in a Host home. They sent us a text: “Thank you very much for helping us in this beautiful country of very kind people… after everything my family has been through, today is a very nice day to dream again.”

Amen. May we all begin to dream again.