‘At what point do we cry uncle?’: York Region agrees to funding as ‘refugee camp’ grows in Vaughan

Richmond Hill and Newmarket regional councillors question whether tax dollars should help African asylum seekers

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 5, 2023
Kim Zarzour

It’s York Region’s “secret problem”: pregnant women, children and families who fled for their lives from Africa with just the clothes on their backs, now huddled on porches, pavement, portables and bus floors, begging for our help.

Should local tax dollars be used to ease their pain?

York Region council grappled with the problem Thursday of how to assist the apparently never-ending flow of asylum seekers flocking to Peel, Toronto, Durham and, this summer in particular, Vaughan.

For the second council meeting in a row, members of the Miracle Arena, a Woodbridge church offering aid and shelter, appeared before regional council Sept. 28.

This time, they provided a cellphone tour to highlight the unsafe, makeshift, sleeping arrangements on the Weston Road property.

At the same time, council received a report from staff recommending the region contribute $4.3 million in emergency aid -- interim accommodations and wraparound supports for the asylum seekers.

In the end, a majority of council members agreed to fork out the money, but not before several argued, this is just not our problem.

For the past four months asylum seekers have flooded the Miracle Arena: more than 400 men, women and children who are claiming asylum for a variety of reasons -- tribal wars, ethnic cleansing, military coups and persecution of LGBTQ people.

The influx has transformed the church into a refugee hub but there are safety concerns. The facility relies on a septic tank and they have been told by the city the water is not safe to drink; there is limited space and weather is turning cold.

Senior Pastor Prophet Danso took councillors on a tour of the property on his cellphone camera. “I want you to understand the critical nature of the situation,” he said.

Council members saw people sleeping on the floor of unheated buses, others in portable containers and three tiny houses, built in seven hours by church members, now crammed with bunk beds.

Church representatives asked council for the creation of a new bus stop -- currently a 20-minute walk away for refugees with immigration and medical appointments -- and zoning changes to allow for more transitional housing on the 12.8-acre site

“Their goal is not to be a burden on society,” Minister Isaac Oppong said. “It’s to get them stable and back into the community.”
Katherine Chislett, commissioner of Community and Health Services, said the region opened an interim hotel-based housing site last week, with capacity to accommodate up to 100 people.

While the hotel space and region’s support is appreciated, Shernett Martin, executive director, ANCHOR Canada, said it’s not enough.

She questioned why the region was keeping the asylum seekers a secret.

“The region and city were very supportive and transparent about asking residents for help in housing and supporting the Afghan, Syrian and Ukrainian refugees. Why are the African refugee seekers not receiving the same public engagement and concern?”

Refugees at the hotel desperately need "culturally sensitive" settlement and translation services and even basics for diapers, water, and feminine hygiene products, she said.

“There were no kettles in the room to boil water to mix formula for their child,” Martin said, adding some refugees appeared in the hotel lobby at 5 a.m. and no one asked if they needed help.

“I can’t imagine what hotel guests think, seeing 50 African asylum seekers with their garbage bags filled with clothes.

“This is a crisis of enormous proportions while the weather’s good. Imagine this in January.”

Chislett asked councillors to approve $4.3 million in funding to continue hotel operations until the end of March 2024 with settlement supports.

This may not be the region’s mandate, she said, but the asylum seekers will come here in any event, to live in parks and local emergency housing.

Peel now has five hotels, and the shelter system is filling up with overflow as more people arrive. This is happening in Toronto, as well, she said.

From January to July 2023 more than 61,000 people made asylum claims in Canada, a 63 per cent increase over the same period of 2022, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada.

The federal government is responsible for planned immigration (economic and sponsored migrants and refugees designated for resettlement). Since asylum seekers are not considered planned or permanent residents until their refugee claim is approved, settlement supports for this group fall to the provincial government.

“This is unplanned migration, Chislett said. “That is the big difference here. With the Ukrainian group, they had special visas, they can work right away.

We had people at Pearson to greet them and show them where beds were available. I’m not sure that $4.3 million will be enough but it’s a start.”
Regional councillors Joe DiPaola, of Richmond Hill, and Tom Vegh, of Newmarket, voted against providing funding for the refugees.

“What’s our job here?” DiPaola said. “I don’t think ratepayers in York Region want their property tax dollars used to be the leading caregivers for asylum seekers. Word will get out not only across the GTA but around the globe, ‘just get yourself into Toronto somehow and you’ll be housed and fed.’

“It seems like failed federal immigration policy that’s created a problem and it’s not appropriate to use property tax dollars to try and save it.”

Several councillors suggested contacting MPs and MPPs.

“It’s shameful to me that a country like Canada, one of the richest in the world, is lacking a process for when people arrive, how we treat them, and I think we should speak up,” Vaughan Regional Councillor Gino Rosati said. “We’re letting the federal government, and to some extent the provincial government, off the hook.”

Chislett agreed.

“We can keep adding (shelter spaces) but the flow will keep coming,” she said. “At what point are we going to have to cry uncle? I’m very, very worried about that. We desperately need the provincial and federal governments to start co-ordinating this and helping.”