It was serendipitous timing, they all agree.
One couple’s life took on new meaning after their son was born. How could they help a refugee family in need provide a safe and fulfilling life for their children?
Meanwhile, two sisters living at Maplewood Plaza took notice of some neighbours slowly starting to move out.
A sign was already planted in the ground out front: the property was going to be redeveloped soon. By spring the residents would have to leave.
At the same time, a shell-shocked Syrian refugee family was waiting in limbo at a refugee camp in Turkey for a saviour – or a dozen of them in this case.
Maplewood Plaza’s property managers, meanwhile, considered donating the vacant, still livable units to Syrian refugee families, but don’t have a ‘vehicle.’
Eileen Patel and her husband Mehul started the charitable chain reaction in March.
“After we had our son, we started paying more attention to stories of people leaving their homes and not being able to keep their kids safe,” says Eileen, who grew up in the Seymour area. “It really started having an impact on us.”
When Eileen approached those in her inner circle – to ask if anyone would be interested in helping sponsor a Syrian family – the intention was already at the forefront of their minds. The response was overwhelmingly positive.
But it was going to take more than just words of support. Eileen needed a strong financial backing to help one Syrian family live comfortably and get settled for the first year in the face of “the incredible cost of living in Vancouver.”
Eileen, a lawyer, turned to a colleague at her firm, Greg Allen and his wife Jasmine, who were keen on helping out with her cause.
The couple, who experienced personal loss this year, channeled that grief into this humanitarian project.
“We wanted something positive,” says Jasmine.
The Patels and the Allens, along with a few other required legal sponsors, went the “blended visa referral” route – where the Canadian government has already vetted and identified refugees for resettlement and provides six months of income support – as opposed to a pure private sponsorship.
Eileen and Jasmine quickly learned just how much demand there is among bighearted Canadians like themselves looking to sponsor a family.
As refugees receive clearance to come to Canada, potential sponsors from coast to coast are instructed to check their email at a specific time.
“Everyone sits at their email at 10 o’clock on a Wednesday morning and they open up the email and the spreadsheet - and just choose,” explains Eileen, who likens the experience to buying coveted concert tickets.
The friends feverishly wrote down corresponding reference numbers for refugee families they ostensibly figured would be a good match.
“You send a responding email without even a ‘hi,’ just ‘here’s the list,’” says Eileen.
Success. The group gets a match on their first try, which is uncommon. All they are told is that it’s a young family of four: a father, 35, mother, 23, daughter, 3, and son, 2.
This was July. The sponsors are then given a four to sixteen-week window for when their Syrian family will show up.
This presents a housing predicament for the sponsors: do they secure a rental place a few months ahead of the family’s arrival and just eat those costs or hedge their bets in the hopes something suitable becomes available at the drop of a hat?
Another hindrance is that a lot of subsidized housing isn’t available to privately sponsored refugee families, explains Eileen.
A fortuitous conversation between Eileen and her childhood friends Maegan and Allison Warren brought hope.
Aware of the fact their landlord at Maplewood Plaza was not re-renting the vacant units, the twin sisters figured there’s no harm in asking. They broached the subject with Ben Wong, the plaza’s longtime property manager.
“I called him and the next thing I know he’s knocking at my door,” recalls Maegan. “He was like, ‘I really want to help you.’ It seemed like the timing was too perfect, really. All the puzzle pieces fell into place on this.”
In a building slated to be demolished in mere months, Wong went above and beyond to fix up a suite for the Syrian family to stay in for free, says Maegan.
Wong repaired the walls, swapped out the stove for a better one from another unit, cleaned the carpets and gave the place a fresh coat of paint.
Maegan, Eileen and Jasmine were chomping at the bit to get inside and decorate, but Wong wanted to ensure the apartment was perfect.
With eleven days’ notice of the family’s arrival, the friends got to work sourcing furniture and kitchen supplies to make the two-storey apartment feel welcoming.
The suite has a kitchen and living area upstairs and sleeping quarters downstairs. The ladies worked their magic, transforming one big bedroom into separate spaces for the kids and parents.
Teddy bears were placed on the beds.
All the drawers were filled with clothes, the closets with winter coats, boots and shoes in all different sizes for the family.
Upstairs, the fridge was stocked with food. Eileen and Mehul went to a Palestinian grocery store and bought some staple items including a special spice called za’atar, so the family could start cooking right away.
Oct. 12 was no ordinary Wednesday. The sponsors waited with great anticipation for hours while the Syrian family was held up at Customs and Immigration at the Vancouver airport.
The moment the family stepped into the arrivals area, finally free, the dad wanted to right away reach his sister, who had made it to Vancouver in February.
At the same time, the family didn’t know what to make of their welcoming party.
“They weren’t sure why we were there. And they are still trying to figure out exactly what our role is,” says Eileen, explaining that it’s a difficult concept for the family, who fled war-torn Aleppo, to understand and something they haven’t experienced for a while – the unconditional support of fellow mankind.
When the family walked through the front door of their first Canadian home, at Maplewood Plaza, they cried.
“They were expecting an empty apartment and so when they came in they were shocked,” says Jasmine. “The mom, when she saw the little girl’s bed and the crib, she started to cry.”
A family of few words, they compensate by waving and smiling as they pass Maegan in the hallway and making homemade traditional cookies for their new Canadian friends.
At home in Aleppo, the dad’s family ran a fairly sizable confectionery business.
“He makes sweets and cookies and is hoping to connect with the Persian restaurants in North Van, so it’s good that he lives here,” says Eileen. “It was a really good landing spot.”
Maplewood Plaza is situated in a central area, near the highway and a transit hub, making it easy for the sponsors to get to.
Eileen has been helping the family become acquainted with the transit system, by riding the bus with them to a health clinic on Esplanade Avenue where the kids were immunized and also to Ron Andrews recreation centre.
Before this rare housing opportunity arose, Don Liu had been working with the District of North Vancouver, on behalf of Maplewood Plaza’s owners, to offer the empty suites to people in need of temporary affordable accommodation.
“And there was one person in particular that we were going to give the space to, as long as he paid for the utilities, but he made the long-term decision to move into a more expensive (and permanent) place,” explains Liu.
A few more leads came along that didn’t pan out – until Maegan and Allison made their pitch.
“And it’s the one that made a lot of sense,” says Liu. “We had considered helping a Syrian refugee family, but didn’t have a vehicle. And it just so happened there were these two women that lived at our place. It was excellent timing.”
The application for the Maplewood redevelopment project – a mix of apartments and townhomes with rental and strata, as well as affordable units – is still at the drawing board, but Liu is anticipating it will be approved by early next year, as the area undergoes a revamp and becomes the Maplewood Village Centre.
Eileen knows having the Syrian family at Maplewood Plaza is not a permanent solution, but she said it gives them a chance to get their footing and find out where they want to settle.
When asked if the Maplewood Plaza arrangement is beneficial for the refugee family, Alison Dudley, co-ordinator with the North Shore Immigrant Inclusion Partnership, said it depends.
“If the family is privately sponsored by sponsors who live relatively close by and there are good social services, schools, etc. in the area that the family can access and there’s even the possibility that the refugees may eventually be able to stay in roughly the same neighbourhood/school catchment area in the future, I can see how an offer of free temporary accommodation might be very welcome to both the refugee families and their sponsor groups,” said Dudley in an email.
North Vancouver-based and award-winning urban planner Carla Guerrera, who led the BlueShore Financial head office project on Lonsdale Avenue, said there’s currently a “big movement afoot” where leaders in the real estate industry are becoming more socially and environmentally conscious with the decisions that they make and the contributions to the community.
“And I think what we are seeing here with these refugees is the perfect local example of that,” said Guerrera.
Through this sponsorship process, Eileen has learned she can count on the generosity of others.
“You just need to put the word out there and people come out of the woodwork,” she says.
Maegan, sitting with Eileen and Jasmine inside the Belmondo Café next door to Maplewood Plaza in late October, nods her head in agreement.
“There’s no harm in asking,” she adds. “We didn’t have any expectations. We just asked if we could have the apartment and the answer was a resounding ‘yes.’”
Maegan hopes her positive experience at Maplewood Plaza encourages other property owners to see what they can do to help with the housing crisis.
“It could be a blessing for someone,” she says.
