Three Toronto Churches Took In More Than 600 Refugees. A Jamaican Canadian Pastor Says Government Must Now Step Up

• Three Toronto churches sheltered more than 600 refugees and asylum-seekers
• Pastor Judith James leads a church founded in 1980 by her Jamaican Canadian father
• Claimants had been sleeping on the pavement outside a city shelter referral centre
• The leaders want interim housing and reimbursement for what churches have spent

A Jamaican Canadian pastor is among three Toronto church leaders who say governments have left churches to carry a refugee housing crisis on their own. The Gleaner reported that Pastor Judith James of Revivaltime Tabernacle (RTT) Worldwide Ministries joined Pastor Eddie Jjumba of Dominion Church International and Pastor Chi Opia-Evans of Pilgrim Feast Tabernacles at a press conference to press their case.

RTT was founded in 1980 by Pastor James’s father, the late Bishop Dr Audley James, a Jamaican Canadian. For more than a month, the three congregations had been providing housing, clothing, food and basic care for more than 600 men and women, most of them refugee claimants and asylum-seekers from the African continent.

The churches stepped in after newly arrived claimants were left sleeping on the pavement outside 129 Peter Street, the location of the City of Toronto’s referral and assessment centre, because there was no room in the shelter system. On July 14, African community groups, refugee organisations and others had gathered outside the same building to demand emergency housing.

The church leaders said federal, provincial and municipal governments had effectively neglected the wellbeing of these vulnerable people. “The current situation is untenable and highlights the dire need for immediate and effective government intervention,” they said. They called for interim housing, attention to medical and mental health needs, and reimbursement for organisations that had absorbed the cost. Canada’s immigration minister, Sean Fraser, had announced $212 million for the Interim Housing Assistance Program, with $97 million earmarked for Toronto.

For Jamaicans at home and abroad, the story is a reminder of how much of the diaspora’s church life is built around property: buildings bought by Caribbean congregations in Toronto, London and New York often become the first place people turn when housing fails. It also shows the limits of that model. A sanctuary can shelter hundreds for a few weeks, but congregations paying mortgages, utilities and insurance cannot be a permanent substitute for public housing policy, whether in Canada or in Jamaica.

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