I am putting forward a thought on which I request CD members to give me a response based on their own experiences and preferences.

I have noticed both on this forum and in my experience of having lived in Canada for 4 years that most of the ‘individual category’ immigrants who come to Canada do not have a place to stay in the first few days where they can feel at home and explore the new environment in a relaxed manner.

The options available to such persons are quite a few like:

Hotels
Furnished Apartments
Motels
Guesthouses
Basements available for temporary accommodation
Paying guest accommodation

Hotels are expensive, specially for a new comer and do not provide the convenience of cooking your own meals, internet and other homely conveniences. Furnished Apartments provide that but are very expensive and not easily affordable by most (even those coming from ME!!!) Out of the lot, the best alternative is guesthouses provided either by the immigration agent or some other providers.

I have personally not visited such guest houses, but what I have heard from people is that most of them are in shabby conditions and not very homely.

With that in mind, I have been thinking of combining social service with a side business. I would like to consider opening up a few guest houses in different areas of GTA which would offer:

• Good and clean rooms - it will be kind of a 3 star facility with good furniture including writing desks, lamps, chairs in each room
• Clean Linen
• A good size TV/video/DVD player in the family room
• Personal computer in each room with High speed internet connection
• Printer and photocopier for making resumes – at a cost, which would minimise the need of travelling to HRDC offices, and enable guests to work/print/fax in the evenings and nights
• Dedicated Fax
• Home cooked food
• Guidance/help on initial settlement like SIN, OHIP, Bank Accounts, Credit cards etc.
• Any other legal facility that new immigrant might need to settle down well.

One thing I am very clear is that this will be a very nice guest house – I want to have a place which people will like to stay in and recommend – a place in which I myself would like to stay and feel at home. No cutting corners, no help spared, and with it, no nonsense tolerated. My wife and I have actually operated such a guest house in Indonesia and even those guests who had company entitlement to stay in the hotels, preferred to stay in that guest house because of homliness it offered.

I think the best way to run such guest houses is to offer one room to a young couple/lady free of cost who become resident managers and also prepare the food. The payment of their services is in form of free accommodation. For laundry, a coin laundry will be put and guest will be expected to use that and not do their laundry anywhere else. Stay shall be for a period not exceeding 15 days, and in special circumstances, one month. In short, there will be lots of good things with a few rules to keep the good things as good always. And as Ikea says, to look good, it does not have to be expensive.

Now what I want from you guys is:

1. What do you think should be a reasonable charge per room per day for such a place? (while it is a community service, it has to be run as a business to provide everything we vision for)
2. Should food be an included perk or charged separately?
3. If anyone would like to be an investing/working partner?
4. Would anyone like to become the resident manager?
5. Should Airport pickup be arranged too? If yes, at what cost?
6. Should a structure be made that partial payment is received in advance if booking for a week or more?
7. any other thing which might add to providing convenience to the new immigrant and is possible to be added in the list above?

I am hoping to get responses – not discussion on the subject. It is for the good of the community – both in terms of providing a settlement worth remembering, and providing part time employment to other immigrants already here.

Chandresh

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Chandresh

Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!

Hi Chandreshji,
You are being a smart boy, taking feed back from customer directly. You are genius
I think it is a great idea. Believing that good number of desi's come to Toronto and by grace of Canadian government this number is going to increase. Infact a lot of students are coming from India. I'm student at one of the community college, my class consits of almost 20 students from India on student visa. Imagine number of students when put against numbe of program and number of colleges in Toronto. If you realy look at this proposal as a business and not non-profit community service. You can think of starting a hostel too. These students pay rent ($300) + food = $700 (That is what one of the student told me of his expenses). If you can provide them cheaper accomodation with homely atmosphere. It may become a regular business for you. I assume you can be a foster father for these kids too. They are decent people, so you may not have to worry yourself to great length. If I can be of any use to you, please PM me.

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Thank you Charlie for your response.

Your idea of starting a hostel kind of a thing for international students is a good one, but not feasible for me as an individual since again it will have to be one each in different locations - nearer to the universities.

As far as guest house is concerned - this idea germinated in my mind because of what I heard from different people - that good temporary accommodation is not available to new and tourist immigrants in GTA. When Ihad come here first in end of 1999, I had the same problem, but I could afford a suite in a downtown hotel for my family so it was not so hard for us. And when we came back to live in 2000, we were fortunate enough to get a really good paying guest accommodation with a widow who just after being with us for two days - gave us free access to every part of the house except her room and infact we made it a point that she did not have to cook or clean, which we did while we stayed there. So we had a good homely stay and will cherish it always - however, most of the people are not so fortunate.

In order to help those people - and ONLY for a short while till they find their bearings in GTA, I am toying with this idea of a guest house. And as I have written earlier, it is not just a guest house with a room, I want it to be a home for all, and much more than that!

Chandresh

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Chandresh

Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!

Nice idea, have you seen the "sunnynewcomer" services (hope I got the name right). I am sure many CD guys have used them too. Please visit them in person and see for yourself, I mean evaluate them. They also provide Airport pick-up service.

I think it's a good idea, especially a good secondary income, best of luck.

Cheers

Tom

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Share what u know, Learn what u dont

Thanks for your response Omantom - however, what I am looking for is specific answers to my questions, both from monetary feasibility point of view and to find if there are persons available to support me run the guest houses as I am unable to do it alone.

Chandresh

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Chandresh

Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!

As a matter of fact, I have a similar idea, but put it in on hold for a while, as I believe in first things first. I got into CD website wanting to know similar info & Help , but did not get it. Instead I got hooked into this site.

I feel it's a wonderful idea, and I feel one can offer more than what you listed.


Now coming to your questions
Now what I want from you guys is:

1. What do you think should be a reasonable charge per room per day for such a place? (while it is a community service, it has to be run as a business to provide everything we vision for)

It depends, on variety of factors, you have mentioned 15/30 days max.stay I feel U need to be flexible on this.

2. Should food be an included perk or charged separately?

Instead of food, I feel cooking facilities be provided intially then can switch to food.

3. If anyone would like to be an investing/working partner?

I may be, but your idea of 3 star hotel appears to me as too expensive. but can always discuss more face to face.

4. Would anyone like to become the resident manager?


5. Should Airport pickup be arranged too? If yes, at what cost?
Yes. Cost is always relative.

6. Should a structure be made that partial payment is received in advance if booking for a week or more?
Yes..

7. any other thing which might add to providing convenience to the new immigrant and is possible to be added in the list above?

I feel better to have quality clients and should therefore deliver superior service that goes much beyond than mere lodging.

Chandresh,

Good idea. But execution and maintenance is the key. When I came to this country we were promised a lot, charged a bomb but there was no deliverance. We were robbed.

The other extreme was my friend who came from India last week. He told me he negotiated a lot on the phone and e-mails and got a \"good\" deal. That happiness was short lived. He checked in to that PG accomodation last week. It was nothing short of a pig sty. He ran away from that place. I think we should hold exit interviews with these guys and learn lessons they have learnt to know more about expectations.

I think the idea is to have a homely environment and good hygiene level and provide just about enough resources to make the guest feel comfortable before they start experiencing the outside world. But how much would people be willing to pay up for this. Remember conversion factor, scalping and touts.

I could be wrong on this but I think;

$ 700 per room per family of three. Anything over it would be $ 200 per person - without food per month should be reasonable. this is very much what they would pay if they were to stay in a basement. I could be wrong. We were charged $ 800 per month for a junk computer and no food.

On food, I think you must charge per meal in advance. Whatever applicable. It would be good to have an outside caterer deliver food rather than have the resident manager and his family stay and cook.

I think it would be a good idea to use the CD as a forum to invite opinions and price expectations from members and guests as well.

Other issues:

Internet - must. I know it is so difficult to get a computer for some extra time at the library or even the YMCA - it is absolute necessity.

TV - for weather yes. Apart from this Ironing board etc would be needed.

Some other thoughts:

How many people are you planning to put up in a room. Family?

Location is very important.

Keeping resident manager a good idea. But keeping him in the same premises, not so good one..

I am willing to invest in this proposition. But need more inputs. May be we should meet sometime soon. Lets see what others have to say. Count me in.

Always ... the one.