I believe I explained the transfers in my presentation. Yes, all of those transfers were done. There was a lot of flexibility allowed, so it was really up to the shelters to decide on their priorities.
For many of them, it was around human resources, bringing in extra staffing, the fact that staff had to stay home. There was all of the craziness, if you want, at the beginning of the pandemic. Then there were also a lot of resources that went to finding alternative accommodation, because, as Melpa explained, at the beginning of the pandemic, basically if a shelter could accommodate 10 families, it was reduced to five—pretty much by 50%. You had to find alternative accommodations. A lot of that was in the empty hotel or motel spaces, but those had to be paid for. Then there were PPE resources.
That's how these funds were used. The shelters do have until September 30 to spend those funds.
In terms of the housing piece, it's obviously a welcomed announcement. I actually asked Minister Monsef on Monday to give me a contact at CMHC, because the issue has been partly the slowness of the funds going out and also the transparency. It's really hard to track the money, so as a national organization that's a priority for us.
One of the challenges for the shelters—and many emergency shelters such as Melpa's are opening second-stage shelters—is that you have to generally put up 40% of the total cost, and that's a big amount for shelters, especially in this environment.
Also, shelters are not builders, so there's a big learning curve. There's a 25% commitment in the housing strategy for funds for women, and we feel very strongly that it's very important those targets be met and surpassed, I would say.