In terms of a national housing strategy and a poverty reduction strategy, sometimes it's hard to allow your vision to go somewhere if you don't really believe it's going to happen. But it would certainly improve the lives of many in Canada, where people, especially women, don't have to wonder how they're going to supply the necessities of life for their families and they are able then to concentrate on being able to increase their education through community college and what not. There is just so much time and energy that goes into poverty, and if that time and energy can be spent in doing things that are valuable for your family and yourself, then I envisage that in 20 years the whole outlook for the Canadian population will be quite different.
As far as a national housing strategy goes, we certainly take part in, for example, and have been very fortunate to access some SCPI money through the feds, which allows us to operate the only women's homeless shelter in Cape Breton, as well as building some second-stage housing. The problem with that has been that while we can get the capital costs, we can't hire anyone to coordinate the facility because that money is not included. While we appreciate the capital cost, we really find it difficult to sustain that.
As for other examples of things that have happened in our area, housing is in a deplorable condition. It is really difficult to nail down who's responsible. The municipality says it is not, the province says it is not, and the federal government is not. When you have housing units that are in a deplorable condition and women and children are living in unsafe housing, where in some cases there is asbestos and other things, it's really difficult to know where to go for the answers. It should be available. I can see, for myself and the women I work with, that it can be tied into community college; it can be tied into all kinds of areas where people are taught skills--and that would include a phenomenal amount of things--and get down to the business of being in charge of their own lives. I just see positive things about that.