Peel Region is located at the West edge of Toronto and includes the cities of Brampton, Mississauga and the Town of Caledon. According to the 2006 census, 1,159,405 people live in Peel Region, in 359,040 households. Peel had a total of 561,240 immigrants representing 48.4% of the region’s 2006 population. A great place to start looking for services in Peel is by looking at the Settlement.org site for Peel or the municipal and Regional websites (here) or by calling the 311 line in Brampton. Immigration Peel is a great resource for newcomers and employers and offers services in multiple languages.
The City of Mississauga Planning and Building Department has a report describing immigration patterns and citizenship of Mississauga as compared to Ontario, other provinces and Canada overall. It includes immigrant age profiles, places of birth, settlement patterns, etc. and statistics reflecting income and religion, etc. (based on 2006 Census of Canada). The report on immigration is available as a PDF here and the report on income and religion is available here.
SERVICES SPECIFIC TO NEWCOMERS
- Newcomers Center of Peel
- Brampton Multicultural Community Center
- Malton Neighbourhood Services
- India Rainbow Community Services of Peel
- Peel Public Health: Community Counselling Support Services
- Multicultural Inter-Agency Group of Peel (MIAG): MIAG is a non-profit charitable community organization that strives to address community needs and identify gaps in service delivery, and to ensure the active participation of diverse communities including women, youth, seniors and persons with disabilities in the society
- Catholic Family Services of Peel-Dufferin: Their mandate is to strengthen families and help stop family violence. Counselling services are available in English, French, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Mandarin, Polish, Punjabi, Spanish, Urdu and Tamil. They offer individual, couple, and family counselling in areas such as stress, depression, anxiety, family and/or couple difficulties, grief, separation, eating disorders, transitions, etc. No appointment necessary.
- Shelter Services in Peel Region
- Women’s Counselling Centre: Subsidized by the Government of Ontario and administered by the Salvation Army. Counselling for women who have had a history or are currently victims of any type of abuse.
- Lakeshore Community Outreach Centre: An ecumenical gathering of churches sponsoring a neighbourhood food bank. Other service offered to the residents in their service area: ESL classes, Bible studies, womens’ groups, etc.
- The Mississauga Food Bank: Distributes food to over 12,000 individuals through 30 agencies (not directly to the public)
- Food Banks of all faiths in Peel
- Dixie-Bloor Neighbourhood Center