Nova Scotia sponsorship group still waiting for Syrian refugee placement

A community group in Annapolis Royal working under a blended refugee sponsorship stream is worried it won't end up being matched with a refugee family.

The Blended Visa Office-Referred program (BVOR) is set up so a community group shares half the cost of supporting a refugee family, while federal government pays for the other half.

• Annapolis Royal rallies to ready home for refugees
• Syrian refugees not always available for sponsorship, Canadians learn
• Sponsoring Syrian refugees easier said than done, Calgary group finds

This is different from the fully privatized stream and the government sponsorship stream for Syrian refugees.

The group, Annapolis Royal Community Assisting Relocation (ARCARe), began organizing in August after members saw the image of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi's body washed up on a beach in Turkey. The Federal Government certified ARCARe under the BVOR program in early December.

"For a little community like Annapolis Royal, BVOR is something we felt we could afford  ... and it cuts the cost in half, basically, to sponsor a family," says Laurie McGowan, chair of ARCARe, told CBC Radio's Mainstreet.

Still waiting

McGowan says the group was able to raise $35,000 by early December. A couple volunteering with the group decided to buy a house in the middle of Annapolis Royal in order to house a larger refugee family — between 8 and 12 people.

McGowan says the couple is now paying a hefty mortgage on the property and is renting out the house at cost to ARCARe for when a refugee family arrives but there's no indication of when a family will move in.

"The government put out this call and we answered. We heard lots of stories of groups being told if they did sign on for a family to wait three months and then hearing the next day they would arrive right away," said McGowan.

"We were prepared for that — but what's happened is quite different."

McGowan says groups in the BVOR program were supposed to see lists from their Sponsorship Agreement Holders of available refugees to choose from as they arrived. He says there were lists back in December, but families on that list were snapped up quickly.

McGowan says ARCARe hasn't seen any new lists in awhile, "it just disappeared."

Private sponsorships

Another sponsorship group set up under the BVOR program has made the switch to the private sponsorship stream.

Emily King with the Bay Refugee Project in the Hubbards area says the group made the switch because it raised far more money than expected.

"What we ended up hearing from our Sponsorship Agreement Holder through the BVOR stream was that the list of potential refugee families for placement just wasn't being updated, and that the families on the list were being picked up so quickly that there just weren't enough to go around."

The Bay Refugee Project also became aware of a Syrian refugee family in need of placement that was only available under the private stream.

"We just made a decision as an organization that we'd rather move ahead with our goal of bringing Syrian refugee families to Nova Scotia, than worry too much about the money," King says.

More money needed

Laurie McGowan says the federal government has been pushing ARCARe and other groups in the BVOR program to also make the switch to the private sponsorship stream, but he says that would mean raising another $35,000 to bring in a family.

"If we suddenly had to double to $70,000 to cover the full cost, it would mean an enormous amount of fundraising in this tiny community while all sorts other fundraising is happening at the same time for other causes. And we just can't do that," said McGowan.

Government responds

Mainstreet requested an interview or comment from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada about the hold up with placing refugees families under the BVOR program.

In an e-mail, the government says it expects to share information on new cases for sponsorship through the BVOR program later in March.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada could not say how many BVOR sponsorship groups there are now. 

The department says between Nov. 2, 2015 and March. 2, 2016 2,120 Syrian refugees have been sponsored through the BVOR program as part of the Syrian resettlement initiative.

As of March. 1, the government says 2,224 Syrian BVORS have arrived in Canada. That number includes applications submitted prior to Nov. 4, 2015.

The government says BVOR groups paired with refugee families after the end of February will continue to have their travel and immigration medical costs funded by the government until the goal to have 25,000 government supported refugees has been met.