Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson has been forced to beg for assistance from the federal government to deal with the crisis of housing illegal migrants who have crossed into Canada from the United States.
“The City of Ottawa is unable to meet the demands of vulnerable families in our community for safe, adequate emergency shelter services,” he said in a letter to the federal government.
This is the second formal request for assistance Mayor Watson has made in the past year.
It’s clear Prime Minister Trudeau’s tweet welcoming the world’s migrants to Canada worked, and the City of Ottawa is paying for it.
According to the city, the number of “chronically homeless” families in Ottawa has nearly tripled recently and the city has received hundreds of new housing requests from illegal border crossers.
Taking in illegal border crossers has contributed to the City of Ottawa being $5.7 million over budget in 2017, and they expect the 2018 deficit will be much higher.
The situation is even worse in Canada’s largest city.
Toronto Mayor John Tory had to make the same plea multiple times, stressing the urgency of his requests each time.
City of Toronto officials estimate the added cost over the past two years was $64.5 million, due to the spike in asylum seekers coming to Toronto.
In response, the federal government provided Toronto with $11 million — not even half of what the City has spent so far on illegal border crossers.
With limited shelter options, Toronto has gone to desperate lengths to find places to house hundreds of illegal border-crossers.
In an exclusive report, True North has found that two hotels in Toronto are completely occupied by migrants and the homeless, and closed off to the public.
A Toronto city official has said that as many as 20 new migrants enter the housing system every day.
The influx of border crossers has put immense pressure on homeless shelters across Canada.
Ministers in the Trudeau government have yet to comment on the Ottawa mayor’s latest plea.
