Because of the shortage of shelter housing, Tim Stephenson, left, has opened his home to Marino Miguela Botuli, an asylum seeker fleeing political persecution in the Congo. ( Cole Burston / for The Toronto Star )At one Toronto refugee shelter, a family with four kids was asked to give up one of their two rooms for a newly arrived family so both could have a roof over their heads. Since the beginning of the fall, the peak season for refugee arrivals, Toronto’s already strained refugee shelter system has been dealing with what some operators call an unprecedented bed shortage. Although the system — divided into co-ed, men’s, women’s, youth and family shelters — is currently at 95 per cent capacity, occupancy for family shelters is at the seams. Toronto has 695 funded shelter beds for families and another 520 at motels.

Source: thestar February 02, 2017 11:03 UTC