Metro Vancouver: Asylum Seekers

Sheraton Wall Centre Dept: "One of the problems is their temporary status. Their social insurance number begins with a nine and all employers know that means they are temporary so while they can be legally entitled to work they often can't get a job. If you can't get a job you can't get decent housing," said University of B.C. research assistant Jenny Francis, who authored a paper entitled Precarious Housing and Hidden Homelessness Among Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and new Immigrants in Metro Vancouver. Her paper will be presented at the four-day National Metropolis Conference, which starts today at the Sheraton Wall Centre and focuses this year on immigration, according to Vancouver Sun. She said it's not uncommon for the wait to be three to five years and ninety per cent of the more than 1,000 asylum seekers arriving each year in Metro Vancouver are on their own when it comes to finding a place to live, and many of those end up in housing that is too expensive for their incomes and below national standards for occupancy, experts say. "That temporary status can last years and years. They're the most frightened. They're the ones who could be rejected. They're the ones often running from dangerous situations and worried authorities back home might come here to get them," said Francis. As reported in the news.
@t social insurance number, national metropolis