Shelter Project

The JRS Shelter Project has been moving ahead in leaps and bounds. With a rapidly increasing number of asylum seekers presenting as homeless or at risk of homelessness in the past couple of months, the project has really come into its own.

Currently we are supporting 23 asylum seekers and refugees, in four individual properties and other emergency lodgings, providing them with safety and stability while they move through the immigration process. Financial assistance is an integral part of the project, as well as ensuring other welfare needs are being met by us or other relevant agencies. We continue to work with clients once they receive their permanent visas to assist them to establish their new lives here. Should an individual’s case not be ultimately successful, we work with them to help prepare for the journey home.

Our volunteers are working tirelessly to assist clients to learn English and find employment, as well as searching for more long-term housing solutions. We are constantly on the lookout for properties at affordable prices, which is no mean feat in the current rental climate. Whilst having a roof overhead is the number one priority, we want to ensure that our clients feel supported by the JRS community. The deep sense of isolation experienced by asylum seekers and refugees is often overlooked, but it is what strikes me most when I meet and talk with them. They have left their homes, families and every sense of ‘community’ they know to come to a foreign place with often only the clothes on their backs and a handful of dollars in their pockets. The desire to work hard and forge ahead with life is great, but the immigration process is often slow and arduous, and permission to work and to access Medicare is not always granted. It takes courage and perseverance to make the journey from seeking asylum to being granted permanent protection and these men and women deserve our respect, compassion and support.

We should never forget that each and every asylum seeker and refugee is an individual with similar desires, needs and hopes for the future as you and I. Most of us will hopefully never know what it is to flee our homes and leave our families behind, but it does not take much to stop and think for a minute how desperate you would have to be to even contemplate it, and how much it would mean to you to find support along the way.

If you are interested in helping out with the Shelter Project:

 • We are looking for affordable rental property in the Sydney area to provide accommodation to asylum seekers and refugees

• We are currently in need of heaters for some of our clients

• One client has expressed an interest in learning guitar, so we are on the lookout for a second-hand guitar to enable him to pursue his musical career

• It would also be fantastic if we had a volunteer English teacher who could speak Korean as we have a large number of clients from this region who would dearly love to improve their English

By Louise Stack, Project Coordinator