Asylum seekers left sleeping on Toronto streets amid funding stalemate between city, feds

For two weeks since fleeing violence in Uganda and arriving in Canada in search of asylum, Prosscovia Namusisi has been sleeping on Toronto's streets.

Namusisi is one of a group of asylum seekers from Africa sleeping outside the city's shelter intake office at Peter and Richmond streets downtown. The reason, she says: the city tells them everyday there is no space in any of its shelters.

Namusisi says she has only intermittently been able to go inside the facility to use its toilet and showers, while most of the food and supplies they've received have come from local aid organizations.

"I ask myself that if there were no people who come and give us some stuff to use, how will we survive?" she said.

Ssali Asuman Najib, who says he left Uganda because he and his family faced persecution for opposition to the government, told CBC Toronto living outside in the heat and rain has been incredibly difficult.

"I've spent six days here sleeping on the street, hoping I'll get help from the government, from the good citizens of Canada," he said.

But it's unclear when and from whom that help will come.

Toronto's at-capacity shelter system has been turning away refugees and asylum seekers since the beginning of June and referring them to federal programs, saying it needs more financial support from the federal government. However, many asylum seekers can't get federal help if their claims haven't been fully granted, leaving dozens of them stuck in limbo with nowhere to sleep.

For some asylum seekers, the prolonged period outside has had negative health effects. 

Local organizations providing food and supplies

Diana Chan McNally, a harm reduction case manager with local church and shelter All Saints, says many haven't had access to proper hygiene for days, including one man who now has trench foot.

"This is not 1919. We're not in the middle of a war," said McNally. "These are just rudimentary illnesses that shouldn't exist if we had proper shelter for people."

She says local organizations are bearing the responsibility of fundraising and providing food and supplies. 

"The fact that it's falling to us is unacceptable."

Deputy mayor Jennifer McKelvie says the shelter system cannot handle the number of people coming to the city.

"We want to welcome people to Toronto, but we're not setting them up for success, and we need our federal partners to step up," McKelvie told CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Tuesday. "There's much more they can do around that."

She says aside from additional funding, Ottawa needs to help with coordination and offer space to refugee claimants in the other shelters that it operates across the country.

"Refugees are a federal responsibility," said McKelvie. "They need to step up. They need to help out."

City 'not encouraged' by talks with feds

Gord Tanner, the general manager of Toronto's Shelter, Support & Housing Administration, says 3,000 out of the city's 9,000-bed shelter system are occupied by refugee claimants.

"Toronto's not alone in this," he said, adding Peel Region, Durham Region, the City of London are all facing significant pressures.

Tanner says the federal government provided Toronto with over $70 million throughout 2022, which covered about 98 per cent of the city's cost last year.

"Then they turned their backs on us," said Tanner, who added he has not been encouraged by the conversations the city has had with the federal government.

Shirven Rezvany, spokesperson for incoming Toronto mayor Olivia Chow, told CBC News by email the city needs $157 million to cover existing shelter costs for refugee claimants.

"As arrivals grow, that number will increase," said Rezvany.

But the federal government says through the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP), it has provided $700 million in funding to provincial and municipal governments.

'This is a crisis,' says advocate

Jeffrey MacDonald, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), told CBC News in a statement that this includes approximately $215 million to the City of Toronto. CBC News has asked the IRCC over what time period that funding was disbursed to the city and will update this story when the department reponds.

"IRCC is now in the process of working with provinces and municipalities to make sure that new destinations have capacity to accommodate asylum seekers," said MacDonald.

He says IRCC has been providing temporary accommodations to asylum claimants who entered Canada through the ports in Quebec, and will invest approximately $495 million through its 2023-2024 budget to support service provider organizations delivering settlement services to immigrants and resettled refugees in Ontario.  As of July 3, the federal government has 3,536 hotel rooms in six provinces under its jurisdiction.

Rezvany says that after Chow takes over mayoral duties on Wednesday, there will be a meeting on Friday with senior city, federal and provincial staff to coordinate and determine how to "address the crisis."

LISTEN | Refugees decry lack of shelter space:

Meanwhile, Namusisi just wants someone she can speak to in person, saying she is told to keep on calling the city and the federal government.

''You haven't got any government [people] come here and talk to us."

McNally says in the time she has spent outside the Peter Street facility, she has seen local and provincial government officials, but no MPs from any Toronto ridings or federal government officials.

"This is a crisis that's absolutely everywhere and it can't be ignored," she said.