As a valued supporter of Ve’ahavta, I wanted to share a powerful and unexpected insight from our 2024/25 year-end analysis—one that speaks volumes about the evolving face of poverty in Toronto and the profound impact of your support. 

Ve’ahavta has always served individuals of all faiths and backgrounds who are experiencing poverty and homelessness. But this past year, we witnessed a dramatic demographic shift that caught our attention: In 2024/25, 72% of our program participants were refugees—up from just 19% in 2022. Nearly 90% of them had arrived in Canada within the past year. 

Serving this demographic wasn’t the result of a strategic change on our part. It reflects a broader trend across the GTA, where a growing influx of refugees is placing unprecedented pressure on social services. Today, nearly half of all shelter beds in Toronto are occupied by refugees, and between 150–200 people are turned away from shelters each night. 

While expanding capacity is one solution, our findings point to another: accelerating the path to self-sufficiency. And this is where Ve’ahavta plays a unique and vital role. 

Because our programs require English proficiency, the refugees we serve represent a distinct subset, most of whom come from African countries like Nigeria and Uganda, where English is widely spoken. Most are highly educated, with 63% holding university degrees. These individuals are exceptionally well-positioned to benefit from our services and transition out of poverty more rapidly than others. 

The results speak for themselves: 
• 45% of refugee participants secured employment by the end of their nine-month program—nearly double the rate of Canadian participants. 

• 31% were employed by the fourth month, compared to 19% of Canadian participants. 

These outcomes are not just encouraging—they’re transformative. When English-speaking, highly educated refugees stabilize quickly, they free up critical resources like shelter beds and reduce pressure on systems like Ontario Works (social assistance/welfare). This creates space for others whose journeys to self-sufficiency are more complex and take more time. 

Take Fadekemi, for example.

Fleeing persecution in Nigeria, Fadekemi arrived in Canada in 2023 with her two young daughters. For eight months, they lived in an emergency shelter—until a friend at a food bank told her about Ve’ahavta.

She found community, built friendships, developed the tools to succeed in the Canadian workplace, and—through the support of our social workers— “learned to move past my past.”

Today, Fadekemi is employed full-time as a Personal Support Worker. She and her daughters moved into their own apartment. As she puts it, “A new ME has emerged.”

“At Ve’ahavta, I gained things one could never gain in school—things some people are lucky enough to get from their parents, caregivers, and communities—things like motivation, resilience, and self-awareness.”

We didn’t set out to serve this specific role—helping English-proficient refugees integrate into Canadian society—but we were able to meet this moment because of you. 

Your support has enabled us to adapt, scale, and continue doing what we do best: walking alongside people in crisis and helping them build a path forward. Now, we see that this work not only transforms individual lives. It strengthens the entire system by helping people who are able to reach self-sufficiency faster, to do so, freeing up resources for those who need a bit more time. 

Thank you for being part of this life-changing, system-shifting work. We look forward to sharing more insights with you as we continue to learn and grow together. 

Warmly, 

Cari Kozierok,
CEO, Ve’ahavta