A Brief History
2013: Toronto passes a Sanctuary City motion “ensuring access to services without fear to immigrants without full status or without full status documents.”
City departments, incl. Shelter Support and Housing Admin (SSHA), implement “don’t ask don’t tell” around immigration status (unless required by law) (no source for this part – I just remember).
Jan 2017: Council reaffirmed Toronto a Sanctuary City
Oct 2017, Tanner, now GM of SSHA is contact person on “Managing the Flow of Refugees” report
Says top countries of origin of refugees in shelters are Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, & Columbia (i.e. racialized, esp. Black people)
I read about the system being ‘overwhelmed’ and the countries of origin in the Metro and was like “how does this fit sanctuary policy?” I called SSHA & talked with head of communications for SSHA Patricia Anderson which I document in my dissertation:
“Here, we can begin to understand how racism and anti-migrant sentiment are socially organized. City staff conducted a report and that report is used to mobilize already existing xenophobia and white supremacy. The report was conducted because, according to SSHA spokesperson Pat Anderson, “people wanted to know” how many refugees there were using the shelters and where they were coming from. Anderson told me that asking if someone was a refugee was in alignment with the Sanctuary City policy because “we don’t ask status, we ask reason for service” – this just happens to be the same thing sometimes (personal conversation, Oct. 20, 2017). So already drawing from the anti-migrant racism – either SSHA decided to do the report or it was requested by one or more councillors and the report, using faulty statistics, could then further legitimize this racism.” – Mapping Ruling Relations Through Homelessness Organizing
Anderson wouldn’t tell me who wanted to know. The mainstream media largely believed the City’s narrative that the shelters were full because of the refugees.
OCAP issued a statement denouncing this position:
“The current shelter crisis is a product of the worsening housing crisis, low social assistance rates, declining incomes, and the ongoing failure of council to address the shortage of shelter spaces. Shelter use has increased dramatically across all sectors since 2015. The percentage of refugees in the shelter system is comparable to years past. Their numbers were simply artificially low under the Harper regime because of its regressive immigration policies. Blaming refugees for a crisis that all three levels of government are responsible for creating is reprehensible, can only increase xenophobic violence, and must be viscerally opposed.”
2018: City continues racist scapegoating of refugees October 2: Sue-Anne Levy writes anti-refugee article in Toronto Sun, names & gives address of refugee shelter-hotel October 3: arson attempt at that location – believed to be hate motivated.
Nov 2018: Toronto’s Homeless Count findings: #1: number of people homeless in Toronto is due, in large part, to a significant increase in refugee/asylum claimants “40% of respondents staying in City-administered shelters are refugee/asylum claimants.”
They put it before #2: People who are homeless want housing and the key solutions are increasing income and housing affordability They counted “refugees” as anyone who came to Canada as a refugee. So, many of them were Canadian citizens.
The average length of time in Canada was 9 years – so the “refugees” in the system largely weren’t part of “a significant increase” at all. Counting refugees this way creates an othered status: they are always other, they can never be part of us – Torontonians.
2020: Borders largely closed so Toronto loses its favourite scapegoat. September 2021: Refugee numbers slowly begin to trickle up. 2022: Xenophobic scapegoating picks up again.
May 2023: City breaks its own shelter standards and the Sanctuary City policy and bars people from shelter system (except refugee specific sector) based on immigration status.
City put out misleading data. Says refugees up 440%. They used COVID data when borders largely closed. Number of refugees down 11% than June 2018. Also, they made up 46% of the shelter pop in 2018, today they make up 43%.
City: “the City does not have additional space and currently has no means to expand the system to keep up with the surging demand for shelter space”
New data: 273 unhoused people turned away every day. Up from 219 last month.
Source: City of Toronto
City (especially Tanner) gaslit us for years saying shelters weren’t full. Now they’re admitting it – but only to justify racist it’s policy.
Also, speaking of racism, they plan to keep more refugee beds open – but only for Ukrainians (i.e. white refugees).
A. J. Withers 