City Council Approves Plan to Enhance Shelter Safety Action for Refugees & Asylum Seekers

By -

On December 18th, 2024, Toronto City Council approved the Shelter Safety Action Plan, a three-year initiative aimed at improving safety and services in city shelters, particularly for asylum seekers and refugees. The plan includes increased funding for community organizations providing temporary shelterand expanded housing options tailored for refugees.

Fred Alvarado – Local Journalism Initiative

The plan includes 14 actions based on a CAMH study, addressing issues like violence and harassment by tackling underlying causes and enhancing support for staff and clients.

Amendments to existing contracts were also approved to enhance lodging and community safetyservices, ensuring better support for asylum seekers. The council's decision reflects its commitment toproviding equitable access to shelter services, regardless of immigration status.

The motion to adopt the Shelter Safety Action Plan was moved by Councillor Alejandra Bravo, Chair of the Economic and Community Development Committee. During the discussion, city councillors posed questions to Gord Tanner, General Manager of Toronto Shelter and Support Services, seeking clarity onthe plan's implementation and impact.

Despite these advancements, a coalition of Black-led groups criticized the city's response to systemic inequities in shelter access, expressing disappointment and condemning the city manager's response to Ombudsman Toronto’s report and the council's failure to adopt its recommendations.

Ultimately, 23 councillors voted in favor of the motion, marking a significant step towards enhancing support and safety for asylum seekers and refugees in Toronto's shelter system

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regent Park Portrayed in Film and Television

By -
Image
Toronto has a rich history of being a go-to shooting location for many television and film production companies. Some notable films shot here over the years include Good Will Hunting (1997), Billy Madison (1998), American Psycho (2000), and X-Men (2000). Regent Park has also had its share of showcases in film. This article aims to review the general content of movie dramas and televisions shows shot in Regent and explore their relationship to the community. Clement Virgo is a director, producer, and writer from Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was born in 1966 and moved to the Regent Park area in Toronto in 1977. During this time Regent Park was generally populated by low-income families and as a hot spot for drugs. Virgo is most recently known for his roles in Greenleaf (2016-2018), The Book of Negroes (2015), and The Wire (2002) as Director and/or Producer. His first feature-length film, however, was Rude (1995), which was filmed almost entirely in the old Regent Park. “The film told...
Read more

What Social Inclusion Means to Me

By -
I had moved into Regent Park only a few days before I saw the pink, fuchsia, strawberry, indigo, yellow, green, neck streamers and sparkling robes worn by children, parents, aunts, uncles, and elders as they marched passed my kitchen door. Soon, the nearby Athletic Grounds was blazing with colour. Although it was the first time I heard them, the intonations on the microphone were recognizable, even to me, as prayers. It was Eid, the concluding celebration after Ramadan. It was a beautiful sight. I am a White Jewish senior and I hunted for a stairless condo for years before I chose to live in Regent Park and then only because a relative did business with the new seniors’ building there. “Regent Park?” a friend exclaimed. “You are going to have ethnic problems.”  “Not I.  I come from a long line of fiery leftie activists.” I replied. Stage four and five of revitalizing this post-war subsidized development into a multi-income community was just beginning and I ju...
Read more

Meet Your Neighbourhood Police Officers – PC Mircea Biga and PC Farzad Ghotbi

By -
Image
Community-based policing is a proactive law enforcement strategy that focuses on building ties and working closely with a community’s members to create partnerships and plans for preventing and reducing crime. While community policing will look differently depending on the community it serves, a central feature is that the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis. Currently there are 17 community-based police programs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), but what most people don’t know is that Toronto’s community policing started in Regent Park in May of 2017. We know this because the original officers involved in setting up the Regent Park community policing program continue to work here today. The officers are PC Mircea Biga, PC Farzad Ghotbi, and PC Edward Parks; the newest officer assigned to the Regent Park community is PC Nigel Thomas (who is replacing PC Melissa Huntley while she is on maternity leave). Symptomatic of the increasing diversity...
Read more