Community groups continue to be concerned about the closure of the IRCC Asylum Centre at DEV Centre in Cornwall.
Over 40 community members from 22 organizations met August 1 to discuss the closure of the centre with Julia Carbone, Director of Policy and Legal Affairs, Minister of Immigration and Refugees and Citizenship, and Soyoung Park, Assistant Deputy Minister Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
Carbone and Park related that 66 locally employed asylum claimants were provided with temporary shelter at the DEV Centre for 30 extra days following the July 31 closure. This offer included an option to extend to a maximum of 60 days on a case-by-case basis.
On July 18, United Way Centraide SDG, Senator Bernadette Clement, ACFO SDG drafted a letter that was co-signed by 15 local organizations to Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller, Housing and Infrastructure Minister Sean Fraser, and Treasury Board President Anita Anand, to request a 60-day extension to the housing expiry. The aim of the letter was to provide individuals and families who had been employed locally and/or had ties to the region and were struggling to find housing with extra time to secure a safe, reliable and sustainable home.
The extra 30-60 days for asylum claimants was not an extension of the previous contract. IRCC conducted an RFP process for this temporary shelter that was awarded to the DEV Centre. Food and other specialized services that were provided to claimants in the previous contract were no longer going to be available during this transition period.
“While we are grateful that the IRCC provided a short-term solution for asylum claimants who are employed locally and needed extra time to find housing, there were a lot of questions among community leaders over what the loss of services would mean for the people staying at the DEV Centre temporarily. Over the weekend, we heard stories from residents who were unable to afford groceries and/or prepare food in their rooms, leaving them hungry. We’re currently working with other community organizations to see how we can work together to fill some of the gaps in services while supporting their goal to find housing,” says Juliette Labossière, Executive Director, United Way Centraide SDG.
To provide a clearer understanding of the impact of the closure, Carbone and Park shared a statistical overview of decisions made by asylum claimants about their future plans: 400 people had found alternative accommodations (in Cornwall and other communities), 77 chose to transfer to another IRCC Asylum Centre in Ontario, a small undisclosed number of claimants with specific medical needs was transferred to Ottawa, and 66 chose to stay at the DEV Centre as temporary shelter for the maximum of 60 extra days.
The immediate need expressed during the meeting was supporting the 66 asylum claimants residing at DEV Centre temporarily; however, there was also concern over the 400 asylum claimants who had informed the IRCC that they had found alternative accommodations either in Cornwall or in a new location in Canada.
“We only have anecdotal data so far, but we are very worried that there are people within the 400 who had left the DEV Centre that are currently residing in precarious, unsafe or unaffordable housing situations that are at risk of homelessness. We do not know yet how this will impact our community, but we are monitoring the situation closely,” says Sonia Behilil, Executive Director, ACFO SDG
As a next step, community organizations are working together to distribute a comprehensive resource list that will be updated regularly to help asylum claimants navigate what local services and programs are available to them for food, health, housing, training/education, language support, employment, and other community supports.
