CIMM - Interim Housing Assistance Program

Key messages

• The Government of Canada is committed to working collaboratively with its municipal and provincial partners to help alleviate the exceptional pressures they are facing with respect to providing temporary housing, including for asylum seekers.
• Funding in Supplementary Estimates (A) includes $102.5M for the Interim Housing Assistance Program which is being re-profiled from 2019-2020 to 2020-2021 in order to provide financial assistance to provincial and municipal governments to address extraordinary interim housing pressures resulting from increased volumes of asylum claimants in recent years and rising costs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The Supplementary Estimates (A) further include a temporary internal transfer of $97.5M from the Settlement Program contribution to the grant for the Interim Housing Assistance Program (within Vote 10) in order to increase the grant authority for this program to $200M [redacted]

Supporting facts and figures

Funding profile for the Interim Housing Assistance Program is as follows:

• The 2020-2021 Supplementary Estimates (A) include a grant authority of $200M for this program which is comprised of:
  • $102.5M sourced by the re-profile request of unused funding for the Interim Housing Assistance Program from 2019-2020 into 2020-2021, and
  • $97.5M internal transfer from the Settlement Program contribution to the grant for the Interim Housing Assistance Program (within Vote 10).
• Given the pressures related to asylum claimants’ use of interim housing, we expect Quebec and Toronto will be recipients under the Program.

Background

• Canada has received increased volumes of asylum claims from both “regular” and “irregular” migrants since 2017. This has placed pressure on many services, primarily on temporary housing services provided by provincial and municipal governments, particularly in Quebec and Ontario.
• In March 2019, the Government created a grant program - the Interim Housing Assistance Program - in order to cost-share with provinces, and if necessary municipalities, for interim housing costs incurred in 2017 through 2019. The primary objective was to provide temporary assistance to allow provinces to adjust to new asylum pressures and to increase interim housing capacity.
• An amount of $474M ($150M in 2018-2019 and $324M in 2019-2020) was approved through past Estimates in order to compensate provinces and municipalities for extraordinary costs related to the provision of temporary housing to asylum claimants.
• To date, the Department has issued payments totaling $371.5M to provinces and municipalities:

• Both jurisdictions for the Province of Quebec and City of Toronto received high volumes of asylum claimants and therefore experience pressures on their interim housing services.
• [redacted]
• [redacted] funding will be used to address interim housing pressures brought by COVID-19 in the form of the increased costs of physical distancing and cleaning, and longer than average stays in the short term.
• Increased asylum claims during the first few months of 2020, and the resulting pressures on shelters, have been made more acute by the COVID-19 pandemic. If volumes spike following a resumption of international travel and the removal of current measures at the border, the pressures that have been experienced to date by provinces and municipalities will persist and may be intensified. As a result, it will be even more important to support provinces and municipalities in order to reduce the risk of homelessness for asylum claimants when the current border measures expire.
• Supply requirements of $200M were identified in 2020-2021 up until December 2020. Therefore, an internal transfer of $97.5M within Vote 10 is included in these Supplementary Estimates in order to increase the grant authority for the Interim Housing Assistance Program up to $200M.
• [redacted]

Accommodations for Asymptomatic Asylum Seekers

• To ensure the availability of temporary accommodations for asylum seekers who do not have the means to self-isolate, the Department has secured hotel rooms in six cities near key land ports of entry (Surrey, Lethbridge, Winnipeg, Lacolle, Niagara Falls and Windsor) and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s teams have been deployed to oversee operations in these locations. Contracts with service providers, including for security and transport are also in place.
• To date, the costs related to temporary accommodation for asymptomatic asylum seekers is broken down below: