Human Resources committee  That'll be great if it can be increased, but we have a system of income security that claws back almost half that money, and then what good is it?

Human Resources committee  Yes. Right now that's causing a lot of issues for families. The universal money they get is totally clawed back. A family can have the rent paid in normal times; as soon as they get the GST or the universal...which should put them a little bit ahead, it's clawed back and they end

Human Resources committee  It's clawed back here, yes.

Human Resources committee  Yes. So is the GST; it's clawed back.

Human Resources committee  There is one recommendation I'll give, though. In my years of working here, I've seen that most moms would rather stay home and take care of their children. But if you are a single mom and you choose to do that, then you are doomed to be on income support for a long time. It's s

Human Resources committee  As I said before, even the programs that are there to support poor people are all in trouble—all the programs. We are short-staffed. Nobody provides money for programming, like counselling services, within those programs to help the clients we serve. Every one of those programs i

Human Resources committee  It deals with families.

Human Resources committee  The measure of a good community or a good country, as I understand it, is how it treats its poor. So for a good country, you look at the poor people in that country and see how they are being taken care of. I look at Canada, and I look at Canada's north, and the aboriginal people

Human Resources committee  Thank you. When you go to the communities and you see the number of houses compared to the number of people living there, you know there is a severe housing shortage. The number of housing units needs to increase. I know the government is the largest landlord in most of the comm

Human Resources committee  I can add a little bit. For example, the transitional apartments we run are all furnished by the community. When the families move out, we give them the furniture to help them with their transition, and we replace it. We have been doing that for 10 years. It has been the communit

Human Resources committee  At least 95% of the people we deal with are aboriginal.

Human Resources committee  That is true, from what we see. We have a program the Y runs. We call it a clothing exchange. We collect donations from the community and put them in this place. We open it on Wednesdays. We've done that for about 10 years. Anybody who needs any clothing or any furnishings or kit

Human Resources committee  Thank you. Welcome to Yellowknife. I'm really pleased to be here today. The YWCA has been in Yellowknife for over 40 years, providing various services to families that are experiencing homelessness. Basically, we take care of and provide services for the poor in the community.