Immigrant Services Society of B.C. and Chris Friesen

Refugee: Refugees in B.C. still looking for homes Refugee sponsors in Victoria face housing shortage Ottawa agencies overwhelmed by refugees The director of settlement for the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. says the pause in Vancouver will last five days, beginning Tuesday, according to CBC. Even though the group added 700 beds to its housing stock, it is still taking time to find permanent homes, Chris Friesen said. "Nobody is stuck in an airport for a week or something like that," he said. "Overseas, what it means is either they will put them on later flights or they may them to new centres that have current capacity just to keep the flow going," he said. A surge of arrivals in the last month filled temporary housing to capacity and the settlement groups responsible say they need time to move people into permanent homes before they can accept any new cases. Friesen said it also took more time than expected for the federal immigration department to process the cheques newcomers use to pay for their first homes and other needs. In Ottawa, officials had been gearing up for large numbers of privately sponsored refugees but what came first was the influx of government-assisted ones, filling the available beds. Shahi Alradi is looking for a homes for his family, including his one-year-old daughter Zain Alsham. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.