Afghan refugee finally calls home in Adelaide

Afghan refugee Zabi Waseq has spent most of his twenties in limbo, waiting for news of a permanent home.

After fleeing Afghanistan in 2015, he sought asylum in India and was granted a humanitarian visa by the Australian government five years later.

He was in India for another two years because of the global pandemic.

After arriving in Adelaide in April, he spent five months living in a hotel but has now been offered temporary accommodation at a former aged care home in Regency Park.

Up to 39 refugees will be provided a room for six weeks by Charities Uniting SA and AMES Australia, as a temporary solution to Adelaide's housing shortage.

AMES Australia CEO Cath Scarth said the facility would help new migrants get on their feet.

She said that living somewhere like this for the first six weeks will make a difference for people who have come from an incredibly traumatised background.

Waseq lives with a degenerative disease and said life with disability in India was very difficult. We didn't have the right to work, and we couldn't afford to live in a good way.

It was great news for us to come to Australia and have somewhere we can finally call home. The facility also houses NDIS clients who have been discharged from hospital but don't have permanent accommodation to go into.

Over the next four years, the federal government has announced that additional 16,500 humanitarian visas will be granted to Afghan refugees like Mr Waseq over the next four years, in addition to Australia's existing humanitarian program.

Ms Scarth said that there would certainly be a steady influx of migrants into Adelaide because of the Albanese government's commitment to boosting skilled migration by 35,000 places per year.

When they arrive at the airport, we need to find somewhere for them to live. The site will be redeveloped by the state government in the next three years to be turned into affordable housing.

Social Services Minister Nat Cook said that the state government planned to build an affordable housing precinct, and was actively looking for long-term housing solutions for refugee arrivals.

She said that we need to determine whether these people are planning to say here long term, or whether they plan to go home.

We need to make sure we can accommodate people, and we have made a lot of investments since coming into government. The state government has budgeted $177 million for the construction of 400 new public houses, half of which will be built in metropolitan Adelaide.

With a bachelor's degree in computer science, he hoped to find work soon.