An asylum seeker heads back into their Niagara Falls, Ont. hotel, in January. The federal government has spent $1.1-billion to house asylum seekers in hotels since 2017.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Asylum claimants living in hotels booked by the federal government are being told to check out by next week, when the Immigration Department plans to end its policy of paying for their rooms and hotel meals.
Ottawa’s decision follows criticism of the cost of providing hotel accommodation for people seeking asylum in Canada.
But refugee advocates said potentially forcing asylum claimants onto the street after Sept. 30 is unfair, saying there has been a lack of investment in transitional housing for refugee claimants who arrive here seeking sanctuary.
Immigration Department spokeswoman Isabelle Dubois said in a statement that her department is actively helping asylum claimants living in hotels find alternative “stable housing” but said government-funded hotel rooms were never meant to be a permanent home.
Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said “it’s unacceptable that they will be facing homelessness.” She said dedicated transitional housing for refugees, which is scarce, operates at a fraction of the cost of hotels and is a far better option.
Dedicated housing for asylum claimants, with meals and support, such as advice on getting a work permit and accessing legal aid, can cost in the region of $40 to $75 a day, based on facilities run by civil society organizations, she said.
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The Globe and Mail reported in July that the federal government has spent $1.1-billion to house asylum seekers in hotels since 2017, on top of the $1.5-billion it has given provinces and cities to help pay for refugee claimants’ upkeep.
In July, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said it was footing the bill for rooms and meals for a total of 500 asylum seekers in one hotel in Quebec and four in Ontario. The average cost for each claimant, it said, was $132 a day – down from $199 a day in January, 2004, it said.
As of this week, IRCC said it is housing 142 asylum claimants in hotels in Ontario.
Ottawa began housing asylum seekers in hotels in 2017 as a temporary stop gap as shelters were overwhelmed by increasing numbers. It block-booked rooms to help relieve the burden on provinces and towns to accommodate the rising number of claimants.
At its peak in late 2023, IRCC was renting rooms in 46 hotels from Vancouver to Atlantic Canada at an average cost of $205 a night. In 2022, the federal department had block-booked 23 hotels with 2,400 rooms to house asylum seekers.
The number of people claiming asylum has been dropping, according to IRCC, with 34 per cent fewer asylum claims submitted between Jan. 1 and July 31, compared with the same period in 2024. Ottawa has brought in restrictions on certain visas and a cap on study permits.
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Last year, the government began issuing “notices to vacate” hotels to incentivize asylum seekers to search for accommodation in communities. This led to 13,000 asylum seekers leaving hotels from January, 2024, to March of this year, a briefing document for former immigration minister Rachel Bendayan said.
“IRCC-funded hotels were always intended as a temporary measure to ease pressure on local shelters, and this was clearly communicated to occupants from the outset. Claimants are being supported to move into longer-term housing,” Ms. Dubois said. “Asylum claimants receive support to find housing, employment, education, and other essential services, and are expected to transition to independent living as quickly as possible.”
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But Syed Hussan, a spokesperson for Migrants Rights Network, said refugee claimants are not able to get work permits fast enough and are confronted with “an incredibly high cost of living.”
Shelters accommodating homeless people in cities such as Toronto and Ottawa are already stretched.
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said the Liberals had turned “Canada’s once compassionate asylum system into a backdoor economic migration stream.”
She blamed the government for giving asylum claimants “benefits Canadians don’t even get, like vision care, or staying in hotel rooms. So, it’s a mess.”