Asylum seekers staying in federally-funded hotels will soon have to check out as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) says that funding will end in September.
A spokesperson for IRCC told CBC News via email that as of Thursday, the federal government was housing 485 asylum seekers in five hotels in Ontario and Quebec, noting it has spent approximately $1.1 billion on temporary hotel housing for asylum seekers since 2020.
“This measure was never meant to be permanent, and IRCC is funded to continue hotel operations only until September 30, 2025,” the email said.
Ottawa has provided funding for asylum seekers to be housed in hotels across Canada since at least 2018. Federal officials have previously said this system was always meant to be a stop-gap measure to deal with historic surges in migration.
Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that plans to revamp Canada’s outdated asylum system have been cancelled, and proposed border laws will likely make it more challenging to claim asylum. IRCC says it will help those still in hotels find housing, but experts and advocates say that could be a tough task in cities with high demand and low supply.
Municipal shelters are consistently full, according to Adaoma Patterson, director of community investments at United Way Greater Toronto. While some additional capacity has been added in the form of a dedicated shelter for asylum claimants in Peel, she says more needs to be done to avoid overloading an already-stressed shelter system.
“I think municipalities are doing everything that they can. But shelters take a long time to build. So it’s not something that can happen overnight,” Patterson said.
Affordable housing shortages also make it challenging for asylum seekers, who sometimes encounter problems finding landlords willing to rent to them, she said, adding that some could end up on the street or in unsafe living conditions due to overcrowding.
“Anyone who is not in safe, stable housing, there’s always a risk that their health is compromised. And then in extreme cases, you might see someone pass away,” she said.
Over 15,000 asylum claimants who were previously in hotels have now transitioned to independent living, IRCC said in its email to CBC News.
The department says it will help the 485 people remaining in the hotels find longer term housing before the program ends on Sept. 30. It said it will support people on-site while they look for longer-term housing, and that it will continue “supporting provinces and municipalities in developing their own long-term housing strategies.”
“While asylum volumes remain high, they are nearly 40 per cent lower than last year,” IRCC said.
CBC News asked IRCC why volumes have declined but has yet to receive a response.
How the government quietly scrapped a $68M asylum system revamp project
Last year, the federal government cancelled an IRCC project meant to revamp Canada’s outdated asylum system. The $68-million project was intended to be a major reform after Canada began seeing surges of asylum seekers entering the country, putting pressure on an already struggling system that relied heavily on paper files.
Meanwhile, the government’s proposed Strong Borders Act contains controversial new measures, including changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that would force asylum seekers entering the country to make their claims within a year.
Christopher Worswick, an economics professor at Carleton University who focuses on migration, questions whether the volume of asylum claims has really declined that much.
“Or is this just an attempt to offload it onto the province,” he asked.
Worswick says housing asylum claimants is an international obligation — and an expensive one at that.
He warned that while the decision to end hotel funding may be motivated by a desire to cut federal spending, it could result in passing on costs to provinces and municipalities that are also cash-strapped.
With those budget challenges and municipal governments lacking the taxation powers that higher levels of government can use, Worswick wonders, “Where is the money going to come from?”
How a Vaughan church is helping house more than 50 refugees and asylum seekers
Community organizations have previously stepped in to support asylum seekers who fell through the cracks in different levels of government support. But they say they’re also feeling strain.
In 2023, hundreds of asylum seekers slept on the streets in downtown Toronto amid a funding stalemate between the city and the federal government. Miracle Arena For All Nations, a church in Vaughan, Ont., was one of several community groups that stepped up to help.
Minister Isaac Oppong says his congregation has fed and housed over 500 asylum seekers on the church grounds since June 2023. He says he’s concerned that ending the hotel program without other solutions in place will again lead to people sleeping in the streets.
“There’s nowhere for them to go. There’s no repurposed buildings or there’s no other housing. We will go back to square one like 2023,” he said.
Oppong says his congregation supports asylum seekers on a volunteer basis and hasn’t received any government funding. He says it’s not financially sustainable for local groups like his to continue supporting the influx of people long-term.
“It’s bringing people into your lifeboat because you see they’re drowning,” he said. “But obviously you can’t keep them in the lifeboat. You have to take them somewhere else.”
