An unexpected surge of refugees from African countries began in May 2023, when Toronto’s shelter system was already over capacity with close to 3,000 refugees. The number of asylum seekers in Toronto’s shelter system multiplied by more than 500 percent, from a low of about 530 people per night in September 2021 to more than 2,800 in […]

It was a triumphant change of fortune: after years of obstructions and holdups, Toronto city hall announced in August that it would break ground on the first development of its marquee affordable housing program — with two more “shovel ready” sites to begin construction by year’s end.

A key city committee has endorsed nearly $86 million in new spending to support Toronto’s crowded shelter system, including cash to house some refugees at a hotel in Vaughan.  Councilors on the general government committee have approved a package of new, and renewed, non-competitive contracts city staff said are “critical” to support the shelter system. 

Peel Region could open a long-awaited reception centre to provide front-line services and temporary shelter for more than 1,000 asylum claimants each month as soon as July, if Ottawa and the province agree to provide  more than $46 million in additional funding, says Brampton mayor Patrick Brown.

As Toronto’s homeless shelters have weathered a growing number of critical incidents — from violence to overdoses — researchers are calling for nearly two dozen interventions to bolster safety, including giving priority access to housing for the small number of people involved in hundreds of critical cases. 

Asylum seekers are sleeping on the pavement in downtown Toronto. An encampment spreads outside a homeless shelter in Mississauga. A church in Vaughan is building tiny homes on its Greenbelt property.

 On the occasion of National Refugee Rights Day, the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) is calling on the government to address critical gaps in the reception and support of refugee claimants arriving at our borders by establishing a national system that builds on the success of the one that serves resettled refugees.

Canada’s escalating housing crisis and surging immigration rates are pushing a growing number of refugee women into an ill-suited and sometimes unsafe shelter system that was primarily designed for the chronically homeless, advocates say.

After waiting hours in the cold to get into a Mississauga shelter space, Delphina Ngigi, a Kenyan asylum seeker, died. Her death adds to a disturbing trend of asylum seekers and migrants denied appropriate care and housing while in Canada; a situation which has prompted community members and advocates to question whether support services available

Newly released figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada show the federal government spent more than $100 million housing asylum seekers at hotels in Niagara Falls over the last year. Nearly 5,000 asylum seekers were sent to hotels in the tourist city between Feb. 1, 2023, and Feb. 1, 2024, according to the immigration department. Most were from