The year Sebastian Commock spent waiting for his refugee hearing was the most “agonizing, frustrating” year of his life.

“I’m still not fully recovered from that year, and that was just one year,” he said.

With his own experience of being in limbo behind him, Commock has turned his attention to refugee claimants who’ve been waiting five years — or in some cases more — for hearings to decide whether they can remain in Canada.

As of March, there were 5,514 so-called “legacy” refugee claimants whose cases haven’t been decided. Their claims were filed before Dec. 15, 2012, which means they aren’t subject to tighter timelines established by the former Conservative government.

Over the last five years, the Immigration and Refugee Board has worked through more than 26,000 of those claims. More than 13,000 were rejected, almost 8,700 were accepted, and the rest were either abandoned or withdrawn.

In September, the board’s legacy task force will embark on a two-year process to decide the remaining claims.

To help support legacy claimants through that process, Commock founded a new advocacy and support group in March. Four months later, the Canadian Legacy Refugee Advocacy and Alliance (CLRAA) is working to support more than 150 legacy claimants. They’ve been able to reach hundreds of others through the 519, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ inclusion, where Commock and another member of the executive committee work.

While the organization is mostly supporting LGBTQ legacy refugee claimants, the group is open to legacy claimants who have come to Canada for any reason, Commock said.

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