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Feb 20, 2024

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Select an urban region of your choice that is home to displaced migrants. Discuss the opportunities and challenges as they relate to COVID19 in the urban context Chloé Rodrigue 219514116 Migration and Displacement EUC/GEOG 2320 3.0 2023 Fall Term Work presented to Nashwa Khan (TUTR 01) Faculty of Enviromental and Urban Change York University November 1 st 2023
The pandemic certainly had a negative effect on many communities and society as a whole. The end of the pandemic was declared May 11 th , 2023, by the World Health Organization 1 , yet we still live its burdens to this day. Migration didn’t stop or slow down during the pandemic, making migrants one of the most negatively affected populations in the world due to extremely unfavorable conditions that made the necessary action of moving a challenge. I’d like to discuss challenges that were especially hard during the pandemic that a lot of migrants in Sudbury, Ontario had to live through and still deal with to this day, poverty, integration, homelessness and discrimination. To begin, poverty and integration are problems that many migrants faced, even before the pandemic. While Canada is recognized to have some of the best integration for immigrants 2 , this is only true in gateway cities; Places where immigrants enter the country and settle have some of the best resources due to the amount of immigration and people that need a certain service in a concentrated area. Sudbury is located 4 hours north of Toronto and has a high population of migrants due to subsidized education at the local colleges, yet this is only recently in the past 5 years. Sudbury is a place that’s population grew so much because of migration, the city’s infrastructure and services couldn’t keep up with the demand, making life in Sudbury very expensive to live in. Many of the migrants who attend school sponsor their family members to come to Canada, but because of the majority French and English-speaking population, there are near to no resources in other languages leaving it hard to communicate and get a job, leading to unemployment and difficulty in integration. “ Place matters in the 1 United Nations. (2023, May 5). Who chief declares end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency | UN news . United Nations. https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1136367 • 2 McGrath, S. (2019) Reflections on Global Refugee Research Networking in Mobilizing Global Knowledge, Refugee Research in an Age of Displacement, in Mc.Grath, S and Young J.E.E. University of Calgary Press.
shaping of immigrant lives and in the extent and character of social integration ” 3 In a place like Sudbury, being a little less than 4000 square kilometers , there isn’t tight knit communities or places migrants can really practice their social life, being isolated from people they are familiar to, everyday necessities such as grocery stores and restaurants and having extra expenses during the winter due to the harsh conditions up north. In terms of COVID-19, this was a harder time for migrants in Sudbury. Migrants were always last when it came to medical services like COVID-19 vaccines since they weren’t seen as a priority group, there was no way to get places since the public transit closed completely for a period of 8 months, and people’s mouths were covered by masks making it hard to understand . One of the major issues facing the migrants in Sudbury is homelessness. Two reports that came out in 2019 by Employment and Social Development Canada showed that from 2016 to 2017, there was a 50% increase in newcomers and migrants in homeless shelters. 4 This summer me and my friend wanted to know more about the homeless population in Sudbury since we were wondering what our city could do better to manage homelessness downtown, the main hub for people without homes since food kitchens, the shelter, the YMCA and the bus terminal are all nearby. Something that surprised us was that about half the people we talked to were migrants, mostly from South/East Asia. They weren’t on the streets because of addiction, but because family sponsorship went wrong, and they no longer had support from anyone in the region since there aren’t any resources for migrants. How one individual earned money was by collecting cans, since they could not legally get a job because of their status, • 3 Heather Smith & David Ley (2008) Even in Canada? 1 The Multiscalar Construction and Experience of Concentrated Immigrant Poverty in Gateway Cities, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 98:3, 686-713, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802104509 4 Wright, T. (2019, August 9). Growing number of newcomers, refugees ending up homeless in Canada: Studies . CBCnews. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/homeless-newcomers-refugees-canada- studies-1.5242426
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