GTA reception centre for asylum seekers won’t be ready before winter

Refugees camp outside of a shelter intake centre on Peter Street in Toronto (Craig Wadman).

Officials in Peel Region are expressing trepidation about opening a promised welcome centre for refugees near Pearson airport in the absence of guarantees that other municipalities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) will be able to quickly house them.

“We can’t fully open the reception centre operations until we have some confidence that other municipalities are going to be able to take those asylum seekers,” Peel Region’s director of social development, planning and partnerships Jason Hastings said.  

“You don’t want to aggregate all the demand in Peel for the whole GTHA and not have places to be able to push people out to so that they can get settled in those respective communities,” he told a recent meeting of the region’s Government Relations Committee.

The reception centre was one of the initiatives that was put forward last year as refugees and asylum claimants were spilling out onto the streets at a downtown Toronto shelter intake centre on Peter Street, many of them having been sent there after landing at Pearson.

It was also prompted by the death of an asylum-seeker camped out outside of a former Peel Region shelter.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow writes down notes while a community member voices their concerns during a press conference at Revivaltime Tabernacle Church, where African and Black refugees and asylum seekers received emergency shelter, in North York, Ont., on Friday, July 28, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin

The federal government eventually came forward to provide $7 million toward a reception centre for refugees near the airport. Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said at the time that the centre could be operational within months.

But in a news conference on Toronto’s winter services plan for the homeless population earlier this week, city staff said they still have no opening date for the project. 

“The Peter Street respite is a very busy place. People continue to arrive there directly from the airport,” General Manager of Shelter and Support Services Gord Tanner told reporters.

He said Toronto officials are “still waiting for an opening date” from Peel for the reception centre, which is meant to take some pressure off of GTA shelters as a first point of contact for asylum seekers.

But Hastings told Peel’s Government Relations Committee that while the reception centre could open by February, there is concern that the capacity will still not exist across the GTHA to receive the newcomers into the various municipal shelter systems.

People gather around the stage at Revivaltime Tabernacle Church, where African and Black refugees and asylum seekers received emergency shelter, prior to a conference with Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow in North York, Ont., on Friday, July 28, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin (The Canadian Press)

“At this point in time, I have to say we are questioning the capacity of other municipalities to be able to accept asylum claimants, partly because they don’t have tools like subsidies to be able to get people housed, but also because they’re just lacking shelter spaces in some of their communities,” Hastings said.

He added that the region has good working relationships with some of the other GTHA municipalities, but the capacity just might not be there.

“We are questioning the extent to which we can triage the full number of asylum claimants that arrive in the GTHA every month,” he said.

 

Region, feds working on timeline

In an email to CP24.com, Mayor Brown lauded the opening of the first floor of the Spectrum Way shelter site in Mississauga, a four-storey converted office building focused on asylum claimants, as a “significant milestone.”

The site will serve two functions; a regional reception centre offering a stay of up to five days to triage asylum seekers and offer them key services before they move elsewhere in the GTHA, and a longer-term dedicated shelter where asylum seekers can stay up to 90 days.

The 90-day shelter now has 88 beds, with 500 more expected to be added in the first quarter of 2025.

According to Peel Region, the reception centre is expected to eventually have space for up to 179 individuals. It will offer them a variety of on-site settlement, health and social supports before directing them to spaces in other municipalities.

However Brown said its scale and the level of cooperation with other municipalities will be “dependent on federal funding decisions.”

“It was important that we prioritized shelter beds first and foremost to ensure we have appropriate shelter capacity as the winter months approach. The reception centre component is dependent on the ability of other municipalities to house and settle asylum claimants in their communities.”

Brown said the region is working with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to determine the “process and timing” for opening service at the reception centre.

In an email to CP24.com, IRCC noted that it increased its financial support for the project from $7 million to $22 million through the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP) after Peel submitted an updated proposal in July.

The statement said IRCC “will continue to engage with Peel Region” on plans to establish a reception centre.

It noted that the IHAP program is receiving another $1.1 billion over three years, with funding in 2026-27 conditional on provincial and municipal investments in “permanent transitional housing solutions for asylum claimants.”

 

Chow says GTA can’t wait

Asked about the possible delay of the reception centre, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said that it’s needed now.

“To the good people that are organizing the Peel reception centre, do it now,” Chow said when CP24 asked her about the centre at a media availability this week. “The last time this was negotiated was December last year. We’re now quickly approaching a year. We cannot wait to open up that reception centre.”

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow speaks with reporters Thursday October 24, 2024.

She added that her city is “doing its part,” with a shelter system where more than 50 per cent of users are asylum seekers.

“Six thousand refugee claimants are in our shelters,” Chow said. “No other cities, no other municipalities across Canada have taken as many, have sheltered so many refugees claimants. We will continue to do our part.”