One look inside the car and it's obvious someone has been living in it. There are shirts on hangers dangling from the passenger-side window hook. In the back seat, there's a blanket, a pillow and an eye mask. The vehicle has been home to an asylum seeker since his recent eviction from a hotel leased by the federal government.
It's very difficult. It's very cold at night. Sometimes, I don't have a place to go to the washroom, to change my clothes.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has rules for asylum seekers in its hotels across the country that, if broken, could result in occupants receiving short-term eviction notices that leave them with little choice but to sleep on the streets or, in this case, in their car in the midst of a nationwide housing crisis.
Ottawa recently announced a roughly 20 per cent reduction in the number of permanent residents in 2025 from a previous target of 500,000 to 395,000 amid recent polls showing Canadians have an increasingly negative attitude toward immigration.
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