Five families have moved to Chatham-Kent from various parts of the world to test if the community can handle an influx of refugees.
The municipality sent out a news release to announce it is working with the federal government to fulfill the country's international obligations to those who are seeking asylum.
According to April Rietdyk, general manager of community human services for the municipality and lead on the pilot project, CK jumped at the opportunity to get involved. She said the federal government was looking for other ways to deal with asylum seekers as Toronto and Montreal were at capacity for the number of families it could handle.
"Being the first welcoming community in Canada we certainly stepped up," Rietdyk said. "We said we are willing to assist and asked what we could do to help. We are a smaller rural, agriculture-based community, but we are willing to try and see if we can be of assistance."
Rietdyk said the families, which consist of 20 total people, arrived on Friday and have been put up in hotels for eight weeks. She added the federal government is paying for the stay, so there is no cost to the municipality and they won't impact the emergency response systems.
"When we had the flood we had to open up a shelter," Rietdyk said. "We didn't want to put any stress on our own system so as part of the pilot project the federal government is housing them for eight weeks."
According to Rietdyk, the families come from a range of countries between Africa and the Middle East. She added they all speak fluent English and will start working as soon as they get their visa.
Rietdyk said this could be a really good thing for the local economy.
"Our population has no been increasing and we also have a lot of jobs available," Rietdyk said. "From the municipal side, we thought the only way we're going to get more people is to assist them in immigrating to Chatham-Kent."
As for how long it will take for them to become functioning, contributing members of society, Rietdyk said it varies from family to family. It can take up to two years to get their Immigration and Refugee Board meeting, but she said the families are fully expected to begin working and find their own apartments as soon as they can.
Rietdyk added the families are currently trying to get settled after quite the journey but she was able to meet with them over the weekend.
"There are children and I am not going to get into ages, but they're certainly wondering why there is no snow on the ground," Rietdyk said. "Some of the older kids just wanted to know the WiFi password. They're really cute. It is really a good news story"
Rietdyk added if this pilot project is successful as amalgamating these families to the local society, the municipality can work on assisting more asylum seekers to move here.