Purchase of entire buildings just one option being considered as refugees continue to place strain on housing and social services
The federal government is weighing options for dealing with the ongoing crisis in housing for refugee claimants, with Immigration Minister Marc Miller saying it might even purchase hotels to convert them into refugee housing centres as a way of cutting costs.
Figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada show that this year alone, Ottawa has paid for about 4,000 hotel rooms for 7,300 asylum seekers, many of them transferred from provincial shelters.
(While housing refugee claimants is a provincial responsibility, the federal government has been paying for hotels since the pandemic because of overloaded provincial shelters.)
Other figures show that in the 16 months between September 2021 and January 2023 Ottawa spent close to $94 million booking entire hotels to house asylum seekers. This included 10 hotels in Montreal and others in Niagara Falls and Ottawa. On average, asylum seekers spent 113 days in hotels at a cost of $208 per person per day, including meals and security.
Buying hotels isn’t the only option on the table for the housing crisis. Another is the creation of reception centres, like the one announced last fall for Peel Region.
“We know that the surge in asylum seekers has particularly strained resources here in Ontario, especially in the Greater Toronto Area,” Khera said. “In response to that, we have both increased our engagement and our resources.”
And just last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged $750-million to Quebec to help deal with the influx of refugee claimants that the province says has been putting a strain on housing, education and health care.
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