Front Burner - Voices from inside Toronto’s refugee crisis

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

This summer a humanitarian crisis played out on the streets of downtown Toronto. With city and federal shelters at capacity, dozens of asylum seekers resorted to camping on the sidewalk, in the busy entertainment district, sleeping outside in the blistering heat and through thunderstorms, for weeks. Last week, the federal government announced a one-time $212 million dollar injection into an existing program that helps provide temporary housing to refugee claimants. And most of that funding goes to Toronto. But the city’s mayor and the Ontario premier want more funding and resources from Ottawa. While the funding is being negotiated, about 200 asylum seekers are now staying at two churches in North York, thanks to mostly Black-led community organizations and faith groups. Today on Front Burner, producer Shannon Higgins visits one of those churches to hear from the refugee claimants themselves. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. You must be aching. Does it hurt? Yeah, yeah. In the morning you wake up and the ribs are full of pain. When I come here, it is not the country I expected.

My friends from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, many of us from Nigeria, we are here. How many of you sleep here every night? We are almost 100 plus. This summer, a humanitarian crisis played out on the streets of downtown Toronto. With city and federal shelters at capacity, dozens of asylum seekers resorted to camping on the sidewalk in the busy entertainment district, sleeping outside in blistering heat and through thunderstorms for weeks. For the last 21 days, our brothers and sisters have been sleeping on the streets of Toronto.

Shame! Shame! Shame! Last week, the federal government announced a one-time $212 million injection into an existing program that helps provide temporary housing to refugee claimants. And most of that funding is earmarked for Toronto. But the city's mayor and the premier of Ontario want more. A lot more.

Finding the space, funding the space, setting it up, especially if it's an emergency situation, we just don't have that kind of expertise to do so. You can't just drop people and say, OK, we're all done. It doesn't work that way. Now, it's not clear yet how this will all play out. But what we do know is that thanks to mostly Black-led community organizations and faith groups, about 200 asylum seekers are now staying at two churches in North York. I'm Shannon Higgins. I'm a producer here at FrontBurner. And today, we'll be visiting one

of those churches to hear from the refugee claimants themselves. Okay, so we're here at Dominion Church International Toronto in North York. That's like in the northwest end of Toronto. And from the outside, the church looks a bit like an office building. We're next to a very busy road and this is one of two churches housing a lot of people who have been living on the sidewalk. So we're about to go in to meet some refugee claimants who have been finding shelter here. Let's go. I'm Shannon, I'm with CCC.

My name is Samuel Okisitu. Here at Dominion Church, Tomi's home, I am a community advocate who understands the community and its needs. That's Samuel. He's a volunteer who welcomed us when we arrived. And not that long ago, he relied on Dominion Church for survival. In the very first beginning of my life in Canada, I came as a refugee in this place,

a political refugee belonging to the People Power Movement. Samuel is a refugee from Uganda, and his support of a pro-democracy, anti-corruption political movement made him a government target. He came to Canada in 2019, and during the pandemic things got so tough, he ended up living out of a small back room at the church. So he knows exactly how it feels to be new to a country and have nowhere to sleep. I worked as a PSW, and one woman, before her death, told her mother that, hey, there was an angel in my room, a man from Africa.

His name is Samuel. He comes from Uganda. That humbles me. And I understand there are so many Ansanga angels. These angels are refugees like myself. It means that there are so many other angels really who have been hit hard by COVID-19, hit hard by the sunshine on the streets, hit by the rain or the snow. These people need our love. They need our compassion.

They need us to open our doors to see that they feel at home away from home. As we get to talking, Samuel tells me that the church actually rents this space for about $6,000 a month. And he offers to show us how they've managed to convert their worship space into a shelter. It will be okay to walk along with you. Yeah.

Yeah. So we're heading into the sanctuary? Yeah, we're heading into the sanctuary. Okay, so we're in the heart of the church. It's a big open room. It looks a little bit like an office building that's been converted into a church. And there's a stage at the front.

There's some crosses. And there are dark purple chairs where people have been sleeping. The situation's very makeshift here. There's like a food area at the back. There's some pizza that's been delivered. And I can see some bananas. And people are moving a microwave in now, I assume, to heat some stuff up.

And there's just people kind of hanging out with their belongings. There's some makeshift beds on the ground. And later tonight, there will be a room full of people trying to get some rest here. Samuel says that more than 100 people will be sleeping in the church that night, maybe more. And looking around, the church is clearly trying its best with the resources they have.

But the space just isn't set up for this level of need. Because we lack storage, we are forced to really just have these curtains cover But the space just isn't set up for this level of need. help members with food donations, but we don't have storage even if we got members who respond to send donations here. But this is how we squeeze everything to make it happen. You can see. Oh, there's tomatoes and we're looking at some melons. Watermelons. But there's not a lot of space here. Yeah, not a lot of space. This is our small bedroom, which has been turned into a place for accessories or toiletries. So I'm seeing there's some vitamins and some toothpaste, a little bit of deodorant, some soap, toothbrushes. But there's not a lot compared to how many people are here. We have more than 100 people right now but the number is still growing because every day we have a drop-in.

But remember we have no single coin from the government. Community members are bringing food. Us volunteers are rendering our hours. We cancelled our shifts. So that is where we are. We strongly believe that the government has announced a funding. We continue to appeal to the concerned parties to say that let the people in need, the ones who need these resources, to receive them. Kwa hivyo, kwa kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, kwa hivyo, clothing, and other utilities,

whether hygiene, whether sanitary pads for the women. Now, after showing us around, Samuel introduced us to a woman wearing this blue Superman t-shirt. She stood out because she was older than most of the people in the room. And she was just settling in. She'd only just arrived at the church that very morning. Hello, Mama. You good? I'm good. You okay?

I'm okay. Now, take the opportunity to share with the wonderful people from CBC. Yes, I'm okay talking to you. I'm called Rose. I'm from Kenya. As we get to talking, we find out that her full name is Rosa Opio. She's 63 years old, and as she moisturizes her hands with lotion, she tells us what drove her to leave home.

I left Kenya, you know, I lost my husband. But you know, there are some people in our culture, when your husband dies, they inherit you, the brother, to your husband. So he was treating me very bad, kicking me, beating me all the time. When he's drunk, he's beating me, and one day he told me that I will kill you so when I heard of that I said no so when I went to church I went you just say I was in

just a small church so when I went to church I wanted to stay there they say with this man he will come here and then fight us here because he's a drunkard man. So I could not stay in the church. I could not stay anywhere. If I go to my sister's, he comes there. He's saying, let us go back home. Why are you staying here? So I decided to leave the place. Then I decided to come to Canada. I said, I prayed God helped me until I got the way to come. Rosa tells us she's been in Canada for about a month. But like most people in that church, she just couldn't find a steady place to stay at night.

Today I'm feeling very good. And I'm happy, my daughter, I'm happy. Because I've been just going around, walking in the streets, here and there, I call the centres, I don't get... I was just roaming around, going up and down, looking for the centre where I can go. But I failed to get, sometimes I just sleep somewhere you can't even understand. So I was suffering like that. It was suffering. So today I can count this is a blessing to me.

Tell us a little bit about what you have with you here, like what belongings you have with you. Oh, my belongings. I have, anyway, I only have my clothes here. I have my clothes and my phones. I have just clothes and phones. I have nothing again. All I can open for you, you check. You see.

But you have sort of just like a small bag and then another sort of tote bag. I have this one. I also have this one. This one here. So there's a towel and a purse. There's a towel and there's a bag inside here with my small, small things. Yes, I have small, small things here, like medicine, which I took because I'm suffering from blood pressure. After Rosa showed us all her things,

before we said goodbye, she asked if we could take a selfie with her, which we did. And then I had one last question. What are you hoping for? What I'm hoping for is that if I can get somewhere to stay and I get some little work, I do. And then I continue with life.

Yes, that is what I'm hoping to do. If I can get the papers, I stay in Canada, then I continue with the life. My name is Brian Masai, a Kenyan refugee. Currently seeking asylum in Canada. That's Brian, the next person we met at the church. He's a younger man, back home, he's a journalist. And as we sat down, he showed us his sleeping arrangements,

which was basically a bunch of chairs lined up in a row. What you're looking at here basically is my queen bed. So the queen bed is like six chairs. One, two, three, four, so basically eight chairs. How's your back doing? Compared to where we were, this is heaven. So how's your back doing? Brian tells us he's been in Canada for about six weeks, but only arrived at the church a couple days ago. It's very sad that unfortunately,

besides the housing and every other basic commodity, the mental health as well of most of the refugees is not good. What about you? How are you feeling? I have to be strong, you know. It's an African thing not to show pain. And that's why you see, if you look at the faces of most of us, the resilience on our faces, the willingness to bear pain and long hours of basically cold.

So you can imagine their mental state. There are people here who, their minds are not here. People have depression here already. I mean, they're running away from problems back at home. And you get here, you start questioning yourself, I mean, why is there

a future here, really? But thank God right now, at least there's some light at the end of the tunnel, some gleam of hope. I know here there's more help, but previously have you been having a hard time getting a meal? Thank God here we are able to at least get three meals a day. Before, a meal a day, and it's when it comes by.

If it doesn't come by, just survive on water. Thank God water has been readily available, at least. Mungu, wata kwa kwa mungu ili kwa kwa kwa. Na... Nyingi kwa kwa kwa. Kwa kwa mungu, kwa kwa kwa, 3 mungu. Kwa kwa kwa. Kwa kwa kwa, nyingi nyingi nyingi. Nyingi nyingi.

Nyingi nyingi. Nyingi nyingi. who's sleeping next to me. People are having nightmares there. Others are shouting. You're not even sure where you'll be the next day, where you will sleep. That uncertainty. You're not even sure if wherever you will sleep,

you won't lose your belongings. You won't lose your documents. So it's been a very, very rough patch. Brian is not comfortable sharing why he had to flee his home. But he does tell us that he's been offered legal assistance here in Canada.

And he guesses that everyone at the church has at least started the paperwork for claiming asylum. He says he wants to get a job, become a taxpayer, maybe even start a family one day. And despite everything he's gone through, Brian was still hopeful about his choice to come to Canada. When you left home, did you have any expectations

for how this process would be once you got to Canada, or were you just unsure, it was sort of a step in the dark? Wow. Did you think it would be better? By all standards, yes. Compared to where we're coming from and what is happening, oh no, this is heaven. And you know, the legal justice system here

and the immigration system here is straightforward, you know. Despite the timings and probably a few delays here and there, you can actually track the process of what is happening, you know. a few delays here and there, you can actually track the process of what is happening. You can basically follow up and know where your process, where your application is, what stage it is at. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization.

Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples.

All right, let's talk now about some of the politics at play here. In Toronto, the shelters are full, with more than a third of the 9,000 beds filled by refugee and asylum seekers. And according to the city, up to 45% of newcomers who turn to the shelter system get turned away. Now, like I mentioned earlier, turned to the shelter system get turned away. Now, like I mentioned earlier,

the federal government already announced a one-time $212 million injection. This is into an existing program that helps provide temporary housing to refugee claimants. Most of that money, like $97 million, will go to Toronto. And Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says this funding should be more than enough. Our projections indicate that the $97 million that the City of Toronto can expect after today's announcement

is more than enough to cover the interim housing costs for some of the vulnerable asylum seekers who they're dealing with in their shelter system. Last week, Minister Fraser also pointed out a significant federal distinction between funding for asylum seekers and funding for refugees. Look, this is really important to understand because over the past number of days and weeks, as this story has unfolded, there's been a lot of people conflating asylum seekers and refugees. He says that Canada has existing programs that directly support refugees, the ones who are brought here through federal programs. And that the government wants to improve things permanently, with some sort of new model to support people who arrive seeking safe haven. Now, back in Toronto, the new mayor, Olivia Chow, welcomed the federal funding, but called it a short-term stopgap that won't meet the needs of refugees. We know the 97 million will only shelter 2,000 refugees, and there are a lot more coming.

So we need a long-term solution. There are a lot more coming, so we need a long-term solution. Toronto and Ontario have both announced $6.67 million in one-time funding to the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit. It's an effort to free up shelter space. And in a classic case of strange bedfellows, Olivia Chow and Doug Ford have teamed up to request another $26.7 million in funding, along with a lot more resources. So the feds, number one, have to pay up the city of Toronto.

This is where myself and the mayor agree 100%. They owe the city of Toronto $150 million. The feds have to speed up the working permits. You can't have these people sitting around for, you know, what is it? They told me four months, four or five more months. That's unacceptable. The feds need to have set up shop here in Ontario and start giving these people working permits. Before we move on, it's worth noting that according to Ontario's fiscal watchdog,

the province does have money, with a recent $500 million budget surplus. And it's predicted that Ontario will have multi-billion dollar annual surpluses in the future. annual surpluses in the future. Back at Dominion Church, I asked Samuel for his thoughts on the political fight and what he'd like to see from all levels of government, starting with the city. What the VHL says is that the immigration issue is a federal responsibility.

But actually, we see a housing issue because we have already had a housing crisis which requires the municipality to come in the city. You know every stakeholder really bring together their hand and see. Do you think the federal government's doing enough? Well I want to say that first of all, when we went to the streets, we went to see that the federal government really comes up, not with just handouts, but with a hand up. We are doing everything we are doing with little or no resources. As you may see, this is a rented place. And at a certain point, we saw ourselves breaching the laws of the Landlord Detentions Agreement.

The landlord formally said that this place is not supposed really to house people. But talking about the funding from the government, it seems that there is no funding. In this case, we've seen low-income and racialized groups bearing the brunt of this whole process, of this whole fight. But the question is that will that money be used to back up or to fund the vision of the, for example the vision of the Dominion Church International Toronto, we have like a division of a community center and then establishing this community center so that we are resourced enough to really encounter any other would-be crisis. If we do not look

at that and then we look at the let's say hotels we are now making the rich more richer because these hotels belongs to housing developers and, you know, the dons of the city versus the people who have faced it rough. government listen listen and listen listen to the cries of people who leave their places their homes uh with the push factors which have not been attended to their poor factors or the welcoming factors should be really addressed to make us have a hope because we run Ontario. We are in the cleaning places. We are in the factories. We are in the hospitals doing PSW, you know. It is not fair to make the rich richer and the poor poorer in a country that is considered to be a self-haven.

And the question comes, is Canada still a self-haven? All that is for us to answer in times like this. So when we published this episode, hundreds of people were still sleeping at those two North York churches. And I spoke to one community organizer who said she's not sure what will happen. All she knows is that more asylum seekers keep showing up at the church. But one thing is for sure. This is a growing international issue that goes far beyond Toronto's borders.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, at the end of 2022, nearly 109 million people were forced to flee their homes, thanks to persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations. and human rights violations. And 76% of those refugees and people in need of international protection were hosted in low- and middle-income countries. That's all for today. I'm Shannon Higgins. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.