It’s not like Garnet Fulton had everything figured out before the hotel manager gave him the eviction notice. He recently survived a heart attack, can only work the odd shift as a security guard and is making ends meet on government assistance.

But now he has a lot more to worry about.

“We have no place to go,” he said over the phone from his third-floor room at the Toronto Plaza Hotel, which sits in a broad parking lot off Wilson Ave., near the intersection of Highways 400 and 401. Fulton has been living there with his girlfriend and their two-year-old son, Baron, since last October, when they were kicked out of their Mississauga apartment after the building was deemed to have too many tenants, he said.

Last weekend, he was told by hotel management that he’d have to pack up and leave again — the same week the federal government is putting up hundreds of newly landed Syrian refugees in the Plaza. Fulton isn’t the only long-term hotel tenant being asked to leave. The hotel manager told the Star there are about 15 rooms for long-term stays that are being emptied out.

Fulton said he was initially told he and his family had to leave by Friday, but he’s pushing Plaza staff to let him stay until Monday at least. Fulton pays $1,200 a month for his hotel room. His biggest worry now is having “no food, no shelter, no nothing,” he said.

“What it does to me is, they didn’t give us notice,” said Fulton, 53. “Just basically, ‘Get out.’ ”

COSTI Immigration Services was contracted by the government to sort out temporary accommodations for newly arrived refugees in the GTA. Mary Celluci, COSTI spokesperson, said the group booked 150 rooms in the hotel back in December. She said they “didn’t expect” that anyone would be inconvenienced by the refugees’ arrival.

Rehan Chaudary is the owner and manager of the hotel. He flatly denied that the arrival of Syrian refugees has anything to do with Fulton and other long-term tenants being asked to leave. Instead, Chaudary said the decision was made months ago to gradually wind down the hotel’s experiment with long-term stays, which once comprised 80 of the Plaza’s 200 rooms. Hotel staff will help Fulton and others land new apartments; some of them have also been trained as cooks or housekeepers at the Plaza, he said.

“This was so blown out of proportion. It’s ridiculous,” Chaudary said, commenting on the media attention his hotel has received.

“We’re not throwing anybody onto the street, and we’re not going to. We’ve been taking people off the street… And if you need more time, we’ll give you more time.”

Fulton, meanwhile, said he welcomes the arrival of people fleeing violence and poverty in other parts of the world, but that he feels the plight of some Canadians shouldn’t be overlooked in the process.

“It hurts,” he said. “Why did this Trudeau guy do this when there’s homeless out there they could’ve helped, there’s needy people he could’ve helped, but he brought people over and — why don’t they start from the ground up?”

Though he’s not sure yet what he’ll do or where he’ll go, Fulton said he’s willing to work as much as he can to find a place to stay with his family.

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“I’ll sweep floors, I’ll do anything,” he said. “I push myself, OK? I had a heart attack. Two weeks later I was riding a bike. I’m a fighter.”