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Federal government considers buying hotels to shelter asylum seekers
Purchase of entire buildings just one option being considered as refugees continue to place strain on housing and social services
Miller recently told the Globe and Mail newspaper that a more affordable way to house people claiming refugee status would be to buy hotels and convert them. Such a plan might also include bringing front-line workers into the buildings to provide services to claimants while they wait for their cases to be processed.
(While housing refugee claimants is a provincial responsibility, the federal government has been paying for hotels since the pandemic because of overloaded provincial shelters.)
Other figures show that in the 16 months between September 2021 and January 2023 Ottawa spent close to $94 million booking entire hotels to house asylum seekers. This included 10 hotels in Montreal and others in Niagara Falls and Ottawa. On average, asylum seekers spent 113 days in hotels at a cost of $208 per person per day, including meals and security.
