London missed application deadline for asylum funding [Video]

Efforts at city hall to get reimbursed by the federal government for costs incurred by asylum seekers might be too late.

On Wednesday, city staff reported 11.9 per cent of emergency shelter beds have been occupied by asylum claimants, costing the emergency homeless shelter system more than $1 million over the 11-month period, dating back to May.

However, MP Peter Fragiskatos said the city missed the deadline to apply for reimbursement of eligible costs from the federal government’s Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP).

“The unfortunate thing here is that the window for applying for that funding has come to a close,” Fragiskatos told CTV News. “What‘s very unfortunate is that city administration and colleagues on [council] had an opportunity to raise this issue during the early stages, I’m talking months ago, when this was first brought up in the fall.”

He added that other municipalities and service providers already applied …