Dilaver Omar: Dilaver Omar sits with his wife Dilsah Sahin and their 11-year-old son Beyez Omar in their room at a Toronto hotel on Jan. 29, 2016. Instead, the couple and their children — 11-year-old son Beyez and 19-year-old daughter Hozana — have spent the last few weeks in a north Toronto hotel that has become a de facto settlement for hundreds of government-sponsored Syrian refugees who have yet to find more permanent homes, according to Huffington Post Canada. Eager to start their new lives and see their children back in school after a two-year hiatus, the parents said they long to move out of the crowded hotel. "All I do is dream about having a home," said Omar, 45, noting the constant bustle of the building has grown to be "too much." On a recent afternoon, dozens of people milled about the lobby, intercepting busy-looking settlement workers while young boys kicked a soccer ball in a corner. A year and a half later, as Omar, his wife Dilsah Sahin and two of their children prepared to come to Canada through the government sponsorship program, they were told a family would be waiting in their new country to show them the lay of the land, he said through an interpreter. Children ran down the halls pushing toy shopping carts or strollers, while three young girls dressed in matching pink coats and boots played with the guest phone. Settlement staff are doing what they can, she said, but it would be so much easier with a local family to show them the way. Housing the biggest hurdle for refugees When they first arrived at the Toronto Airport Plaza Hotel — the family shares adjoining rooms, each just large enough for two queen-size beds and a few suitcases — other refugees warned of long processing delays, Sahin, 44, said in Arabic.
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5.2.16