MLI Homestay — Hotel in Toronto

Hi We had our son hosted by a family provided by MLI for one year in Vancouver. Luckily he made some friends at the school who made up for that bad experience. We asked for a family change since the very beginning and got no reply back from them. They said they would but at a certain point MLI stopped replying to our mails. The host grandfather was always stuck at the TV, the host grandmother was rude and cooked mainly white rice. There was a host sister that was always at work. They would never offer our son to eat together at home nor to make any activity together. There was no family atmosphere at all. Our son didn't enhance his English in the family due to the fact that it was just a family-hotel. His room was tiny. The house was rather dirty. Most importantly, he felt really alone in that family. Luckily there were 2 international students with him in that family that were really nice, same as the friends he made at the school. We ´re very grateful to Debbie Gomes, our son s counselor at Eric Hamber School. MLI was even worse than the family hotel as they ignored us. Our son spent one whole year at this family-hotel. This year we ve had our girl again in Canada, in Montreal and have got a host family by MS Montréal, a different company. Luckily we've been blessed this year. The family is just wonderful. My advise is get homestay companies through an agency in your country. That's what we did this year for our girl. We're from Barcelona and got MS through an agency in Spain (Aston Herencia) and everything has turned out well. We got MLI directly by ourselves, we contacted them without any agency. That's why MLI didn't´t care about us. We were unable to complain to anybody and had just to accept that lousy family. Luckily our son had resources to make friends out of the family, or else his experience would have been terrible. I´ve never ever written a bad review on google. I think it's no good to make bad reviews as they sometimes may be unfair for the companies but this time I felt I really had to. For me MLI behaved worse than our sons host family. They had the responsibility to change our son and they didn´t. We couldn't´t get our son back. The full year was paid to MLI and to the school in advance and he wouldn't´t have had place at his school in Barcelona. He had to stay with that host family. So our son decided he was going to make friends in Vancouver and he felt very well at school. That made up somehow for the bad experience in his house. He was just ignored at that house. Please make sure you have an agency at your country so that you can ask them for responsibility if the family is not fit. Hoping this review may be helpful for the families that are planning to get their sons to study in...

I have been hosting with MLI for about 7 or 8 years. They are very well organized and very supportive of their hosts and students!! I have hosted Chinese girls, Japanese, Brazil, Spain and Belgium girls!! Opening my home to the girls and providing a loving home and parents resting assured their children are cared for so many miles away!! I have a few that have graduated and have moved on to University and are still in touch with us!! One girl her parents trusted us with her daughter that once she graduated high school moved on the University of Waterloo with a scholarship we were her parents. We took her to University and treated her as our own and set her up and was here in Canada for 7 years after and she went home to China to do her masters but is now looking for employment in Canada to return to and call home And for the coordinators I have dealt with a Rippy who is magnificent at what she does!! I myself have Janis Foy and I could not ask for a more supportive, caring and punctual individual!! You call her for anything and she is right on top of things. Weather it’s for school or travel or concerns that hosts have she is so on top of things. She is very well fit for her position and I could not ask for a better coordinator than her!!! Thank you MLI for an amazing company and to give the children a chance to...

Having been a student in Canada with CISS/MLI I can say that this organisation was an absolute nightmare to deal with. When a student raises an issue (I had multiple), it takes ages for them to take any action and they do not keep students informed. However, as soon as a host family raises an issue, they react immediately and try to send the student home. I even had a coordinator tell me that it was “very mature of me” to raise issues with my third host family to her but say that I was afraid of being sent home by the organisation because that is what almost happened after raising issues with my second family. The organisation briefed doctors that they forced me to go to and pay for to prove that I was capable of staying in Canada, saying I was “a spoiled brat that needs a kick in the butt”. The doctor told me about this and proceeded to ask the organisation who they think they are to send a student to him whom they are causing stress and saying that I am the one who has psychological issues. I found this organisation to be very unprofessional and...