The city of Toronto has decided not to try to buy a hotel where 500 homeless people, asylum seekers and refugee claimants are being temporarily housed.
The CBC reported Monday that the city was interested in the Toronto Plaza Hotel near Hwy 400 and Hwy 401, citing documents from September said to show that the city was looking to improve an initial bid for the seven acre property. A lawyer for the owner puts its value near $35 million.
There were reportedly concerns a developer might snatch up the property, which has been hampered by financial problems and mould, and put the housing of hundreds of people on the line.
City spokesperson Tammy Robbinson says Toronto's real estate division did "due diligence" earlier this year to see if there was a business case to buy the hotel for shelter and other needs.
"It has now been determined that this wouldn't be possible and the purchase is not being pursued." Robbinson told NEWSTALK 1010 in a statement.
At the end of September the province estimated that refugees accounted for 40% of all people in Toronto shelters. That figure was expected to reach 54% this month.
Craig Damian Smith, Associate Director of the Global Migration Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto wonders if stories of human difficulty are being lost, especially in rhetoric from the political right.
"The crisis is not an asylum seeker crisis or a refugee crisis. The crisis is an affordable housing crisis," Smith tells NEWSTALK 1010. "Focusing on this issue around the hotels--I'm not sure that it does anything to help those people or to help the political situation in Canada."