‘We lost everything’: Ukrainian refugees in Hamilton, Burlington feel more government support is needed

Sandy Tarasenko's nine-year-old son has one wish: I want to go back home now, to my school and be with my daddy."

The little boy arrived in Burlington last month with his mom, his two siblings and his mom's co-worker, Victoria Perro, after they fled their wartorn home of Kyiv, Ukraine. Tarasenko's husband stayed behind to work.

The group of five headed to west Ukraine for a week, hoping the war would be over soon, but Russia's attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on March 4 made them realize otherwise.

We don't know if we will come back, if our kindergarten will exist. We don't know if the building will exist," Tarasenko told The Spectator.

Perro, Tarasenko and her family are among four million people who have fled the war in Ukraine as of March 29, according to the United Nations.

Tarasenko said her three children - ages three, nine and 11 - and Perro fled through Hungary's border, crossing Austria on a bus for refugees and spending 17 days in Vienna.

When they arrived in Austria, she said volunteers helped them with documentation and offered Ukrainian refugees a free night at a hostel.

But Tarasenko said her experience since arriving in Canada - where the group is staying with a longtime co-worker - has been very different.

Tarasenko said there were no volunteers at the airport when she landed in Montreal and the group spent more than four hours in the immigration centre without any food.

We couldn't feed kids, we couldn't even go and buy some soup. We were locked," she said.

Yet the difficulties for Ukrainian refugees only seem to grow after crossing the Canadian border, according to Tarasenko, who pointed to housing as the most pressing issue.

Every agency calling us offer us shoes, clothes, books, but we need accommodation," said Tarasenko.

Perro and Tarasenko are now applying for jobs and trying to find a home. Tarasenko is also trying to enrol her two children in a local school and send her youngest to daycare. However, with the uncertainty of where she will live and work, it's hard to make plans.

We cannot even rent an apartment because we have no job," she said. We were rather successful in Kyiv ... We lost everything."

On March 17, the Canadian government opened applications for Ukrainian refugees to apply for a temporary resident visa valid for three years while they decide whether to return home or apply for permanent residency.

Services like language training, assistance enrolling children in school and information about how to help find work are available to temporary residents as they arrive at international airports in Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver as of April 1, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

But some like Tarasenko and Perro arrived in Canada before those services were offered on-site.

As of April 4, more than 91,000 temporary resident applications have been received, according to the IRCC. Federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said on March 30 that 12,000 Ukrainians who applied through other immigration channels have arrived in Canada since January.

Even though help is now coming from an official channel, local Ukrainian communities had already been preparing to welcome the refugees in the country since the war broke out.

Elena Lazar, president of the Hamilton branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, told The Spectator that her organization is working along with the mayors council and local agencies that provide settlement assistance like the YMCA and Wesley.

I've heard so much outpouring of offers of assistance from the Canadian community. The Polish community has just been wonderful, the Jewish Congress has also offered any assistance we need here in our area to help with the refugees," said Lazar.

Tarasenko and Perro also have ideas to help Ukrainian refugees, but they aren't sure where to start.

Due to her struggles with finding a daycare, Tarasenko would like to start an organization to help mothers fleeing to Canada with their children.

People forget documents, they forget medicines. They forget the most important things. They just take it and run," said Tarasenko, who remembered packing her bags to come to Canada in 15 minutes. When these people come, they come in shock."

On March 2 around 5 a.m., Perro woke up to the sound of bombs dropping close to her building. Perro put everything she could inside one suitcase in 15 minutes. That was the beginning of her journey from Ukraine to Canada.

Gripped by fear, she couldn't understand if the sounds she was hearing a few meters from her apartment were actually real.

I was living in a high building on the fourth floor in Kyiv, close to a small airport. I just imagined that a bomb could drop down on my house, so I just put some clothes into my suitcase. I even forgot a toothbrush, toothpaste, everything," she said.

Perro told The Spectator her journey from Kyiv to their last stop at the Hungarian border took almost 20 hours.

Her father is a front-line military officer and has seen the war up close. Her boyfriend has also chosen to stay in Kyiv and fight.

We are here. Our men sent us here to keep us safe because we must rebuild our country, to help it from the outside," she said.

The Pasyeka family is one of many hands welcoming Ukrainian refugees in Hamilton.

Anastasiya Pasyeka said her uncle moved from Ukraine to Canada a couple years ago, but a mixup in documents prevented his wife and two children from coming with him. However, since Canada opened the country to Ukrainians fleeing the war, their documents got fast-tracked by the government.

Meanwhile, her young cousins have enrolled in a local school and even a language barrier doesn't seem to discourage them from a new beginning.

They're finally going into school, so they're both really excited for that. They don't know any English, but you know, a lot of immigrants come to Canada with no English and just through living life, they learn the language," said Pasyeka.

The community support has been a vital part of the adaption and resettlement process.

We've gone to a couple of church events just to have that community sense, but we're fortunate enough to be able to provide them the support that they need," said Pasyeka. Also, my uncle's boss has been very kind and is donating a lot of their old clothing, a lot of things to get them on their feet so that they can start their lives here."

Even though the Pasyeka family offered a home away from home to their relatives, the memories of their country and concerns about the war are hard to forget.

It's hard to have to explain to my little cousin why they left. Her parents don't want to talk about it because she is so young. I know that it's important to be transparent with kids in an age appropriate way, so I tried to explain what's happening, and that's really difficult. But it's better for her to have her questions answered."

The local Ukrainian community and refugees resettled in Hamilton have expressed a common sense of guilt with their shared experience.

It's just tiring and sad seeing the news. It's really hard because you feel a sense of guilt while you're safe here in Canada," she said.

- With files from The Canadian PressBeatriz Baleeiro is a reporter at The Spectator. bbaleeiro@torstar.ca