They came to Toronto for safety. Instead African asylum seekers faced racism, homelessness, says new report

The halls of Pilgrim Feast Tabernacles Church sit empty now, a stark contrast to 2023 when they were brimming with African asylum seekers who had nowhere else to go. 

Several cultural and faith-based community organizations "banded together" to house and support the influx of refugee asylum seekers coming into the city at the time — many of whom had been forced to sleep on the streets without adequate municipal support, unable to access the city's overflowing shelter system — says Nadine Miller, the church's executive director.

"We became a house. We became mother, father, medical doctor, the whole nine yards until we could get [the government] to step in," said Miller. "[Asylum seekers] couldn't get in. They were stuck outside of the system."

Two years later, a new study by United Way Greater Toronto has detailed systemic anti-Black racism faced by newcomers in the Greater Toronto Area in 2023 — most of whom were Black and from African countries — as well as failures within the government system. The report also offers solutions needed to ensure asylum seekers don't end up on the streets and in churches again.

Toronto's ombudsman had previously found that the city's decision to limit refugees' access to shelter beds for several months in 2023 was anti-Black racism. The city manager disagreed with that finding last year.

At the time, Black-led groups were able to move more than 200 asylum seekers from the streets of downtown Toronto to shelters in indoor shelters, many of them churches.

The United Way study was done in partnership with the City of Toronto, Region of Peel and the Regional Municipality of York — areas that reported the most significant challenges. 

While a lack of housing and employment were the biggest issues, asylum seekers also struggled with language barriers and limited access to responsive legal support, the report found.

Participants in the report shared their experiences of being unable to secure housing as refugees and getting denied jobs due to racism and foreign credential bias.

"Until this topic comes to the table, and society itself comes to discuss it, nothing is going to be changed," a service provider said in the report.

For the report's lead researcher, Jean de Dieu Basabose, the investigation resonated with his own experience of arriving in Canada from Rwanda in 2018.

Basabose says he too struggled to find a stable job as a newcomer, but he luckily found housing through friends. For asylum seekers, he says "racism came as an extra layer of challenge."

"This form of discrimination is deeply embedded in everyday life and institutions and it undermines the entire settlement process. And that makes it harder for African asylum seekers to find belonging and stability," he said.  

While many study participants called for government intervention going forward, Basabose says social services need to do more to address cultural sensitivity and provide trauma-informed services for refugees.