The city of Toronto is opening up hotel rooms for 150 asylum seekers following a $97-million pledge from the federal government toward shelter spaces for refugees and those seeking asylum.
“We know that Torontonians are generous. We know that together we can be welcoming for refugee claimants so they have dignity, so they don’t have to sleep on the street in the middle of a rainstorm,” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said.
For several weeks, upwards of 100 refugees and asylum seekers—the majority from African countries—have been forced to camp out on the sidewalk outside a shelter in Toronto, as the city’s shelter system struggles to deal with a 500-percent increase in the number of asylum seekers within the last 20 months….