Advocates call for stronger support from York Region for asylum seekers

Region provided $4.3 million, but advocates say help needed for long-term transition to housing and employment

newmarkettoday.ca
Joseph Quigley
Dec. 4, 2023

Asylum seekers in York Region remain in significant need of more support to help them transition into stable housing, advocates say.

Representatives from Vaughan's ANCHOR Canada and Miracle Arena For All Nations updated regional council Nov. 30 about the ongoing African refugee crisis, happening throughout the GTA but concentrated in Vaughan within York Region.

While the region is now offering hotel accommodations and $4.3 million in funding to support the recent influx of asylum seekers, the groups said further supports for employment and housing is needed. The groups also said that the funding pool is not getting to them, despite their ongoing efforts to support the asylum seekers at the hotel and the Miracle Arena site.

With the hotel arrangement due to end at the end of March, ANCHOR Canada executive director Shernett Martin said measures are needed to ensure the asylum seekers can transition well.

There are “very easy, sustainable solutions that we can do to just give people dignity, a safe shelter, a place to live and work,” Martin said. “We just expect more from the region and we’re hoping to receive that from the region.”

The two groups have worked with asylum seekers from the start, with many housing at Miracle Arena before the region got a hotel up and running. The groups have remained involved, assisting people transitioning to the shelter, with some also still using housing Miracle Arena has built on its site.

In addition to funding, the groups called for a health-care team to help support asylum seekers, employment programs for asylum seekers, and a message from the region to landlords to lower the barrier to entry to rental housing.

Martin said such employment programming was made available during previous refugee crises, such as for Ukrainians.

She further said that there is a significant issue with landlords demanding too much, such as having to pay rent for four months in advance and credit scores that asylum seekers would not have yet. With government assistance programs coming in for individuals, that should be enough, Martin said.

“This is not right,” she said. “It’s discriminatory .... We need these people (the region) to start doing something.”

Commissioner of community and health services Katherine Chislett said staff are happy to meet with ANCHOR and Miracle Arena.

Aiding asylum seekers “is not a municipal responsibility. It’s not a program that we operate, but we’ve learned really, really fast,” Chislett said. “We are very mindful of the financial impacts of this.”

Most of the regional funding, Martin said, has been allocated to the Red Cross. Despite ANCHOR’s continued presence on the hotel site running programming, she said they have not received any financial support.

“Our staff are there every day, seven days a week, because they have to be,” she said. “The hotel is wonderful, but it’s transitionary housing ... What are the next steps?”

Rather than presenting to council repeatedly, Martin said they hope council can heed their requests to help ensure there is a longer-term plan in place for asylum seekers to find stable housing and employment.

Their presentation opened with a mention of an asylum seeker in Peel Region who was found dead in a tent outside a shelter earlier this month. She said a second hotel site could be needed for the winter in York Region.

“It’s going to be freezing,” Martin said. “Does York Region want that kind of story in this area?”