Ottawa runs $2.3 million hotel bill to house asylum seekers in Toronto
OTTAWA • The federal government has paid nearly $2.3 million to house asylum seekers in Toronto hotels from August to the end of October, after the city complained earlier this year that its shelter system was overflowing from the influx of refugee claimants. Ottawa will continue to rent some hotel rooms until Jan. 4 for asylum seekers for whom longer-term housing hasn’t yet been found, despite an initial plan to pay for accommodations only until the end of September. However, the number of refugee claimants on the federal government’s tab is far lower than it was in August, when Ottawa said it would rent rooms for about 450 irregular asylum seekers who had been staying in two college dorms. According to numbers tabled in the House of Commons this week, the immigration department ex- tended reservations for 64 hotel rooms from Sept. 30 to Oct. 15, and for 37 rooms until Oct. 29. A spokesperson for Border Security Minister Bill Blair told the Post that only 10 rooms remain occupied as of Nov. 21. “There has been a decrease of over 90 per cent in the number of irregular migrants living in hotels being financed by the federal government,” Marie-Emmanuelle Cadieux told the Post in an email. The federal government paid just over $2 million for Toronto-area hotel rooms from Aug. 1 to Sept. 30, according to the numbers tabled in answer to a question from the Conservatives, and $203,000 in October. Cadieux said the final costs will be known in early 2019. The City of Toronto also houses asylum seekers in hotels through its hotel and motel shelter program, and currently estimates that 1,752 refugee claimants are occupying 471 hotel rooms paid for by the city, out of the roughly 2,500 asylum seekers in the city’s shelter system overall. Twenty-seven asylum seekers are in one hotel funded by the federal government, according to city spokesperson Natasha Hinds Fitzsimmins. In April, Mayor John Tory called for help from the federal and provincial governments, claiming that asylum seekers made up nearly 40 per cent of the people in the city’s shelter system, which was nearing capacity. The issue came to a head in August, when hundreds of asylum seekers temporarily housed in college dorm rooms had to move out to make way for students. That’s when Ottawa stepped in to pay for hotel rooms. Despite the federal support, the city still says asylum seekers make up nearly 38 per cent of people in the shelter system, which receives 15 to 20 new refugee claimants every day. “While the number of refugee/asylum claimants accessing the city’s shelter system fell off a bit during September and October, pressure on the city’s shelter system has remained,” Fitzsimmins told the Post by email.