NOW HERE TO GO

Thousands of refugees live in shelters, hotels and on the streets of Canada's largest cities. How the country is struggling to cope with a massive surge in global asylum seekers.

- Jordan Michael Smith

Ann doesn't know how old she is. She thinks she's probably 40 or 41, but she became separated from her parents as a child, and she has no record of her birth. When she was a child she lived alone on the streets of Kampala, Uganda-one of thousands of homeless youth in the city-and survived by collecting plastic bottles and scrap to sell to recyclers. She slept outside at night, then later in a church, and attended school by day. Remarkably, after years of diligent study, she secured a high school scholarship, saved money and enrolled in university. She earned a degree in international business and began a career in business development for multinational corporations.

Ann, who asked me to use a pseudonym to protect her privacy, married and had three children. But her husband grew vicious to her and the kids, and she began to fear for her life. She fled Uganda alone, planning for her children to join her later. She went first to the Middle East, where authorities seemed indifferent, before a friend told her to try Canada. With a visitor visa in hand, she used what little money she had to book a plane ticket and an Airbnb in Etobicoke, in Toronto's west end, for five days last November. The first day, she phoned Legal Aid Ontario and asked how to make an asylum claim. She asked whether she'd be welcome and safe in Canada and when her children would be able to join her, and was told that her concerns would be dealt with in time. To find a place to stay, she called Central Intake, Toronto's 24-hour hotline for emergency shelter.

Over countless calls across four days, the Central Intake operators told her every shelter in the city was full; one suggested she extend her Airbnb stay. She found a list of shelters in the city. One by one, she visited each by bus or on foot.