'I have a room': Quebecers rush to host Ukrainian refugees, whenever they arrive

A girl from Ukraine looks up at her mother as they wait to gain entry into Romania at the Romanian-Ukrainian border, in Siret, Romania, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Romania, which shares around 600 kilometres (372 miles) of borders with Ukraine to the north, is seeing an influx of refugees from the country as many flee Russia's attacks. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Quebec has seen a flood of people wanting to help Ukrainian refugees, including many locals ready to host them. What's missing -- so far -- is the refugees, with few details yet on what to expect.

After a deluge of requests, the city of Laval, a suburb north of Montreal, wrote Friday that it "is setting up a single point of contact to respond to requests from the Laval community related to the situation in Ukraine."

Citizens and businesses have both offered to lend a hand, and both are asked to write to a new, dedicated email address that will "centralize requests" and coordinate the help that is eventually provided. The email is [e-mail].

Laval's mayor, Stéphane Boyer, said in a statement that even if plans aren't set, he was "proud to see the solidarity of Laval residents, many of whom are mobilizing to help the Ukrainian people."

However, it's not too soon for concrete offers, either, he said.

"Mobilization is in place and the community is ready in the event of the arrival of Ukrainian refugees," Boyer said, also reminding people that cash donations to the Red Cross are currently the best way to help.

A Montreal-based refugee organization, L'Hirondelle, wrote an offer on Facebook immediately following Ukraine's invasion by Russia, directing it at Ukrainian Canadians and writing in Ukrainian.

The Plateau organization had "started a service to support the Ukrainian community," they wrote on Feb. 25, offering one-on-one meetings for people with loved ones in Ukraine to sort through their options, as well as the help of a social worker if needed.

But it wasn't only Ukrainian Canadians who began to contact L'Hirondelle. On Friday, a receptionist picked up the phone and reeled off a series of general updates she'd been giving the general public, including that it's too soon to say exactly how to help a refugee.

"Right now there's not much to do," she said, adding that "there's a lot on Facebook."

On Thursday, the federal government announced preliminary plans, saying it had opened two new immigration streams for Ukrainian refugees: one that will allow an unlimited number of Ukrainians to come to Canada for up to two years with expedited  visas, and the other that allows permanent family reunification for those who want to immigrate for good and have loved ones in Canada.

However, the application process won't open for about two weeks, and it's unclear how quickly people could begin arriving after that.

More than a million people have already fled Ukraine for neighbouring countries, primarily Poland.

Outside of what's happening behind bureaucratic doors at the federal, provincial and municipal level, the other most organized system in Quebec right now is indeed on Facebook.

A Facebook group organized by a Quebec man, along with an online database he created, has been collecting Quebecers' offers of housing for when Ukrainian refugees do arrive.

"We have a large bedroom in the basement with two twin beds and one bathroom," wrote one woman, the mother in a family of five. "We are ready to provide transportation, assistance and support." 

Throughout Friday, people posted other news offer: a two-bedroom cottage in the Laurentians, housing with a semi-retired couple, a home with full-time childcare shared wth the host family, a room dedicated specifically to LGBTQ Ukrainians -- with an offer of a job as well.

As of Friday evening, the Facebook group had 2,800 members, double what it was the day before. Most of the offers went not on Facebook but into the online form, where they weren't made public.

On Thursday, out of 1,400 people who had joined, 533 people had made concrete housing offers that could accommodate 2,045 people, wrote the page's founder, Alexandre Dufresne.

In the same update on Thursday night, he wrote that the project was growing too quickly to stay a citizn-run affair and asked for help connecting with a government agency or an experienced nonprofit that could direct all the traffic.

"There are so many people offering their help that I can't keep up anymore!" he wrote earlier in the night.