Toomas Marley has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Since May 2022, he’s hosted four Ukrainian families in his three-bedroom, semi-detached in Toronto home, each family for two to three months at a time.
“I’m a single guy,” said Marley, who is 70 years old. “So I’ve got two bedrooms available.”
Marley’s parents were once refugees themselves, fleeing Estonia from Russia’s Red Army in 1944. “This is my way of paying it forward,” Marley told Canadian Affairs.
All the families have now moved out of Marley’s Davisville home, found jobs, schools for their children and a growing community of Ukrainian refugees in Toronto. The city has been acutely affected by an influx of refugees and asylum seekers, and has insufficient space for them in city shelters.
This Friday, Toronto’s new mayor Olivia Chow apologized to refugees and asylum seekers and appealed to city residents and rental property owners to open up their properties to the city’s unhoused population.
Temporary visitor visa fast-tracked entry of Ukrainian refugees
“I started gathering furniture in March 2022 after the invasion started,” Marley said. “Four or five beds that people could sleep in and a few other things.”
The first family arrived in the beginning of May, under the Canadian-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel visa — a temporary visitor visa that enables Ukrainians to “work, study and stay in Canada until it is safe for them to return home.” The government stopped accepting applications for this visa — which was not subject to a cap — on July 15, and now requires Ukrainians to apply through the “regular process.”
The Canadian-Ukrainian Congress gave Marley the name of a family that needed to be hosted. Marley is a volunteer with the congress.
That family decided it was time to leave their home in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, Feb. 23, 2022, the night before the Russian invasion began. Amir Arsalanharaty, an electrical engineer, his wife Lidiia and their five-year-old daughter Amira packed up their things and took a bus to Lviv, where Lidiia had relatives.
Less than three months later, they were in Canada, living at Marley’s. In January this year, they had their second child, a girl named Emiliie, who is a Canadian citizen.
Mariupol families escape humanitarian crisis
The second family to live with Marley were from Mariupol, which came under fire the day Russia’s invasion began and quickly became the site of a severe humanitarian crisis.
Viktoriia Kazantseva, her husband Oleksii and their daughter Oryna “waited for three weeks in a [Mariupol] bomb shelter for a humanitarian corridor but didn’t get one.” At the end of March, Ukrainian soldiers came to the shelter and told them they had to leave — the Russians were closing in.
After being underground for three weeks, Viktoriia was shocked to see the state of her city as they made their escape. “My house was destroyed. So was my parents’ house, my grandma’s house. So many people were killed. I saw these people on driveways… near houses. The streets were littered with dead people.” Her father was killed by the Russians on March 3, she said.
Their city destroyed, the family had no choice but to flee. They went first to the nearby city of Berdyansk, then Poland, Austria and finally Canada.
After spending three days in a Toronto hotel, Kazantseva found Marley on Facebook. Shortly thereafter, her family moved into his home.
“We didn’t pay Toomas for rent,” she said. Marley was prepared to buy food for the families, but her family — and the others’ — were self-sufficient, he said.
For the first few months, the Kazantsevas received support amounting to about $700 a month from the Ontario government via Ontario Works.
Then they found jobs. Oleksii, who had previously worked in the Mariupol government as head of youth and sports, worked as a window installer and now drives for Uber. Viktoriia, who owned a children’s centre in Mariupol, now works part-time at a local swimming pool.
“It’s difficult to start a new life,” Viktoriia said. “We had a wonderful life [in Ukraine]. We had a house, a car, a business, and now we have to start our life again. It’s difficult, but after what I saw in Mariupol, safety is the main thing.”
“Toomas is a really good man,” Viktoriia adds. “I know his family. On Thanksgiving, Toomas and our family went to his cousin’s cottage.” Marley also wrote a letter helping their daughter get into a local school and translated the odd document for them, he said.
For the most part, the Ukrainians have figured out their new lives without his help, Marley says modestly.
Life in Toronto, the Kazantsevas have discovered, is expensive. Now that they’re on their own, they pay $3000 a month for rent. But they plan on staying in the city: their daughter attends a good school; the family has Ontario Health cards; plus they’ve made friends in their building, other Ukrainians from Mariupol and Kyiv.
The Kazantsevas’ temporary visitor visa permits them to stay in Canada only until it is safe to return home, but Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s website notes Ukrainians will “gain valuable Canadian work or education experience to help set them up for future success should they eventually choose to seek permanent residency through IRCC’s immigration programs and streams.”
‘What am I going to say before Christmas?’
After the Kazanstevas moved out in November, Marley planned to take a break from hosting families. But one of Kazantsevas’ friends from university had just landed in Toronto with her family and needed a place to stay.
“[Viktoriia] looks at me with sad puppy eyes on Friday, Nov. 13, and says: ‘My girlfriend and her family just arrived in Toronto and are being put up in a hotel by the Canadian government, but they need a place to stay [after that].’
“What am I going to say before Christmas?” Marley said.
And so, Mysha, Olga and their daughter Taisiya moved in with Marley.
They, too, had had a great life in Mariupol: Mysha was a business owner, Olga a cosmetologist. They had bought a house in Mariupol just before the war started.
When they first arrived at Marley’s home, Marley asked Mysha if he needed the WiFi password. Mysha said that he didn’t because, one day when he was underground in a bomb shelter, the Russians ransacked his apartment and stole his computer.
This Canada Day long weekend, the fourth family — Denes, Nadia and their daughter Diana — moved out of Marley’s home.
All four of the families now live within 300 metres of Marley’s house and have become close friends. On his 70th birthday, the families surprised Marley by singing happy birthday in Ukrainian.
Well done Toomas Marley!!