Committee backs $20M for refugees
Cash would provide shelter until Dec. 2018
The city’s community development committee is recommending council approve spending an additional $20 million to extend hotel and motel contracts to house refugee claimants.
The councillors unanimously supported a city staff report, but expressed misgiving that the expenditure is an expensive band-aid solution that will not solve the city’s shelter bed crisis over the long term.
“While we certainly need a more bolstered and stronger housing and shelter strategy overall, we must do this,” Councillor Joe Cressy told the committee.
Cressy added he’s “deeply concerned” that this emergency measure will give “credence to xenophobia out there, that says . . . now we have refugees taking shelter beds.”
“We have a shelter crisis, that’s what we have,” he said.
“While we certainly need a more bolstered and stronger housing and shelter strategy overall, we must do this.” COUNCILLOR JOE CRESSY ON A PROPOSAL TO SPEND $20 MILLION TO EXTEND HOTEL AND MOTEL CONTRACTS TO HOUSE REFUGEE CLAIMANTS
Councillor Joe Mihevc said it’s unfortunate Torontonians must pay a disproportionate share of the cost of settling refugees because the federal government has come up short while the province has capped its financial contribution.
“Who wears it? We wear it,” Mihevc said.
At its November meeting, council will have final say on whether to approve the $20 million to increase and extend the contracts at several Toronto hotels from Nov. 1, 2017, when the current contracts expire, to December 2018.
The staff report said that after a “significant decline” five years ago, there has been a marked increase in the number of refugees arriving this year.
“These surges and their unpredictability create significant pressures on the shelter system, often stretching the system’s capacity beyond its limits,” the staff report says.
“More recently, these surges have also exposed the need for the city to create capacity to deal with them in a more systemic way.”
Representatives from Toronto shelter and refugee houses told the committee that while council should approve the funding, the city also needs to expedite and develop a refugee capacity plan.
“It’s a necessary, immediate measure because even if we wanted to create a plan and develop long-term capacity and solutions, we’re not going to do that in the next two weeks,” said Steven Meagher, of the Christie Refugee Centre.
He also voiced concern about the lack of supports for families and refugees in hotels, compared to a permanent shelter space with services specific to refugees.
“What kind of support are they really getting there?”
Mayor John Tory said Monday that he supports increasing the shelter, support and housing budget in order to extend the contracts, even though neither hotels nor shelters are a “satisfactory or perfect option.”
“I intend to continue to move forward to find longer-term solutions for housing . . . and in the meantime if you said do we have to extend some contracts to make sure that people have some place to go when they’re displaced, the answer is yes.”
Tory added he is proud of his administration’s record on affordable housing and shelter system expansion, with hundreds of new shelter beds opening in the coming months.