It’s been over a year since at least 200 refugee families fled war-torn Ukraine and made Markham their home. How are they adjusting in Canada?
According to pastor David Tin, whose church launched a Welcoming Angels Initiative last year to help with refugee settlement, most of the Ukrainian refugees he has spoken to had a positive experience in Canada, but it cannot be denied that, as with many newcomers, they struggled to find jobs and housing.
Liudmyla Bilous and her two daughters landed in Toronto in May 2022. The mother and daughters were very lucky to live in a house provided free of charge by Tin’s Rhenish Church, so they did not have to search for a place to live or worry about costly rent.
However, they have also experienced being evicted by a landlord on short notice and having nowhere to go when they first arrived.
“I no longer hold a grudge against my former landlord over small conflicts,” said Bilous, “I appreciate the fact that she accepted us at first, helping us to start our new life here, including some documents and school registration.”
Bilous’s positive attitude carried over to her job hunt.
Once the head of a large government department, Bilous now has to work as a gardener due to language barriers.
There’s definitely a psychological gap, she admits, but she’s happy where she is despite the heavy workload and the hot and humid working environment.
“I have a good team that treats me very well, a good manager who constantly asks me how I am doing, which makes me feel so grateful, and the most important thing is, we have taken the first step towards self-support.”
Violetta Radzilevych’s immigrant life, by contrast, has not been so smooth.
As Ukrainian refugees who came to Markham more than a year ago, Radzilevych’s family suffered a severe blow when it came to renting.
Radzilevych claimed her landlady took a full year’s rent from them and then proceeded to deny them every aspect of privacy and quiet enjoyment of the property they reside in, causing her such great mental anguish that she lost an extreme amount of weight and experienced depression.
In terms of career, having been a well-established designer in Ukraine, the last thing Radzilevych wanted was to give up her profession for other types of work.
However, due to the unaffordable office costs, Radzilevych could only work at a home studio, while the landlord’s invasiveness and monitoring prevented her from creating.
Although there have been positives in the past year, such as an invitation from the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, her victories at two “art battles” and a complimentary membership at Markham Group of Artists, she says she can’t help but feel sadness about the hardship of living here and her sense of being targeted as vulnerable.
“The cost of living in Toronto is crazy,” she repeated. “Living in Canada is difficult.” Coupled with the trauma of war and an introverted personality, Radzilevych wasn’t keen on engaging with the local community.
“When faced with similar difficulties, the way each person deals with them may vary,” said Tin. Of the hundreds of families he has helped, he says he believes two-thirds of refugees feel good about Canada.
There are some extreme cases, he added: for example, a pregnant woman who insisted on returning to Ukraine despite the danger of war, because she felt no sense of belonging and emotional support here, as well as a single mom worked three jobs to pay rent.
Helping these newcomers adapt and integrate better and faster requires linguistic, social and psychological assistance, Tin says. Meanwhile, the government could offer incentives to landlords to take in more people in need.
Over the past year, Tin has helped many refugees connect with free host families. With the influx of newcomers and refugees from around the world, he encourages people to get in touch with the church via general@rhenish.ca if they would like to become a host.