Regina group forced to find renters as they wait for Syrian family to arrive

When the Syrian refugee crisis made headlines last year, Canadians sprang into action.

The federal government was busy doing its work, but ordinary citizens also formed groups, collected money, and slogged through paperwork, all in an effort to sponsor refugee families.

Regina's Grace Jasper is one of those citizens.

• Saskatchewan sponsors express frustration as wait for refugees continues

"We rented the home and together as a small team, I had a small team, we furnished the whole house beautifully," she said.

"It was so nice I wanted to move in myself."

Slowly Syrian refugee families started arriving in Canada, but not for everyone.

"We waited, and waited and waited," said Jasper.

In fact, they are still waiting, and have been forced to find renters to live in the house.

Family struggles as group waits

In the meantime, they've waded through the red tape and joined forces with a federal government program called the Links Initiative. It connects private group with Syrian families who already have relatives in Canada.

They are barely able to make ends meet.- Grace Jasper

Now, Jasper's group is connected with a family who fled Aleppo, Syria and is waiting in Turkey.

"They are just barely able to make ends meet and are struggling to survive," said Jasper.

"I think we feel fairly confident the family is not going to arrive early given our experience to date and they tell us at the immigration office, we have a contact there, and she said a minimum of eight months."

So, as they continue to wait, it has given Jasper some time to think about the system and its ability to urgently meet the needs in a humanitarian crisis.

"The generosity and the compassion is there but certainly our experience with the administration and that sort of thing has not been the best."

But when the family finally does arrive, she said, her group will put all its concerns aside.

"We are going to have the biggest party ever."